Georgia puts death row convict Willie Pye to death for killing Alicia Lynn Yarbrough in 1993.

TFD – Dive into the controversial execution of Willie Pye in Georgia despite pleas regarding his intellectual disability.

On Wednesday, Georgia executed Willie Pye, a death row inmate who was found guilty and given a death sentence for the 1993 murder of Alicia Lynn Yarbrough.

The execution, which was Georgia’s first in almost four years, took place in a prison in Jackson, around 50 miles south of Atlanta, at 11:03 p.m. via lethal injection, according to a news release from the Georgia Department of Corrections. It claimed Pye did not provide a conclusive response.

Pye, 59, was executed late on Wednesday after his last round of appeals was turned down by the US Supreme Court. Pye and his attorneys have advocated for Pye’s life to be spared in a mercy petition and other court files, claiming an intellectual handicap, a difficult background, and inadequate legal help.

“Willie’s death sentence was only granted by the State of Georgia after they gave him a defense lawyer who was both racist and inept. Nathan Potek, the man’s attorney, stated following the execution, “And the State has insisted on standing by that death sentence in spite of his lifelong intellectual disability and the fact that he presents a danger to nobody in prison.”

He went on, calling Pye a beloved son, brother, and uncle who “will be dearly missed by his friends, family, and his legal team,” saying, “The people of Georgia deserve better.”

Georgia has not seen an execution since January 2020, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, which commemorated Pye’s execution. The American Bar Association has stated that the Covid-19 outbreak caused the executions to be halted there.

According to court documents, Pye was found guilty in 1996 of rape, burglary, armed robbery, kidnapping with bodily injury, and malice murder in the death of Yarbrough, with whom he had an intermittent love involvement.

A flurry of last-minute appeals, which are usual in capital cases, preceded the execution. Two of these appeals were filed with the US Supreme Court but were ultimately denied. In one, Pye said that he shouldn’t be put to death because of a deal struck during the epidemic between the Georgia Attorney General’s Office and attorneys for the defense that essentially put a hold on executions in the state until a number of requirements were satisfied.

Pye’s lawyers claimed that the state had violated the equal protection and due process sections of the 14th Amendment by keeping Pye out of the deal and placing him in a “disfavored class of death row prisoners.” Citing a state court’s ruling that Pye was not a party to the agreement, the state urged the justices to reject Pye’s appeal.

Pye’s attorneys contended that his execution should be invalidated due to his intellectual handicap, which was the basis for the other appeal. However, Pye’s counsel claimed that Georgia’s standard of proof—that prisoners must demonstrate an intellectual handicap beyond a reasonable doubt—was so onerous as to be unconstitutional.

The state persuaded the Court to reject once more, partly because a state court had already dismissed comparable claims. As is frequently the case in emergency appeals, the Supreme Court did not provide a justification for its decision to deny Pye’s execution, and there were no notable dissents.

Alicia Lynn Yarbrough’s murder

According to an appeals court ruling, Pye and two accomplices planned to rob a guy Yarbrough was staying with in 1993. Because Yarbrough had signed the birth certificate of a child Pye had claimed as his own, Pye was enraged with the man. Before the three men—clad in ski masks—went to the man’s house, where Yarbrough was by himself with the infant, Pye purchased a.22 pistol.

As stated in the court ruling, Pye kicked in the door and threatened Yarbrough with a revolver. Yarbrough was given a ring and necklace by the men, who then kidnapped her and brought her to a motel to sexually assault her.

After that, they drove Yarbrough down a dusty road, where, according to the court decision, Pye shot her three times, commanded her to lie face down, and ordered her out of the car. Later on, one of Pye’s accomplices came clean and gave a state-sponsored testimony. Pye’s DNA was also found in semen retrieved from the victim.

According to the Georgia Attorney General’s Office, Pye’s jury recommended a death sentence, which the court finally imposed in addition to three life sentences plus 20 years. According to Georgia penitentiary records, Pye’s accomplices are also serving life sentences for their participation in Yarbrough’s murder.

Prisoner said trial lawyer “abandoned his post.”

Pye’s clemency petition argued that his sentence should be commuted to life in prison, citing his trial attorney’s incompetent assistance as a contributing factor. Pye passed away in 2000.

In reality, three of Pye’s jurors opposed his execution, pointing to aspects of the prisoner’s past that were not mentioned in his mercy plea, which claimed that his public lawyer was busy and incompetent. But the state parole board was not persuaded. According to a news release, it denied clemency after meeting on Tuesday and “thoroughly considering all of the facts and circumstances of the case.”

According to the petition, Pye’s lawyer “was responsible for all indigent defense services” for Spalding County, Georgia, at the time of Pye’s trial, under a contract for which he received a lump sum payment.

In addition to Pye’s private practice, the petition claimed that Pye’s lawyer handled hundreds of felonies at the same time with the assistance of just one other lawyer and an investigator. The attorney was defending defendants in four other capital trials at the same time that he represented Pye. The lawyer so “effectively abandoned his post.”

His petition stated that jurors “would have learned that Mr. Pye is mentally challenged and has an IQ of 68,” significantly below the 100 average, if he had given Pye proper representation. “They also would have learned the challenges he faced from birth – profound poverty, neglect, constant violence and chaos in his family home – foreclosed the possibility of healthy development,” the petition said.

The US Supreme Court found in 2002 that an execution of this kind would violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment, reiterating the 1989 Georgia Supreme Court ruling that executions of intellectually disabled people violate the state constitution.

Nevertheless, according to Pye’s petition, Georgia is the only state that places the burden of proof at the “insurmountably high standard” of beyond a reasonable doubt.

Though in 2021 a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals annulled the sentence, finding that his trial attorney’s performance during the sentencing phase of Pye’s trial was poor and prejudiced, his conviction and sentence were sustained on appeal in state and federal courts. But a year later, after a hearing before the whole 11th Circuit, that decision was reversed.

Similarly, in 2012, a state court that had previously considered Pye’s claim of intellectual disability concluded that Pye had not provided the necessary evidence. Pye filed a similar appeal on Wednesday, but the court dismissed it, stating that the claim was successive, meaning that it had already been settled, citing the 2012 order.