ATLANTA — An execution scheduled for next week would be the first in Georgia in more than four years. The state is trying to move past an agreement made amid the coronavirus pandemic that effectively halted lethal injections.
Georgia
Georgia readies to resume executions after a 4-year pause brought by COVID and a legal agreement
Georgia last carried out an execution in January 2020. Just over a year later, in April 2021, the state attorney general’s office entered into an agreement with attorneys who represent people on death row to temporarily suspend executions for a certain group of people on death row and to establish conditions under which they could resume.
Here’s a look at why it’s been more than four years since Georgia has carried out an execution.
After the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, Georgia resumed executions in 1983. The four-year break in executions caused by the coronavirus pandemic and a related agreement between the state and lawyers for people on death row was the longest pause since then. From 2010 to 2020, the state executed 30 people, including nine in 2016 and five in 2015.
Unlike some other states, Georgia has not appeared to have problems obtaining the drug it uses for lethal injections. Prison officials have said they get the sedative pentobarbital from a compounding pharmacy whose identity is shielded by state law.
Executions in Georgia stopped in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. But court proceedings continued, meaning people on death row continued to become eligible for execution as they exhausted their appeals.
In early 2021, a committee of a judicial task force on COVID instructed lawyers who represent people on death row to work with the state attorney general’s office to determine terms under which executions could resume. After negotiations, they entered into the agreement in April 2021.
Executions would not restart until six months after three conditions had been met, according to the agreement: the expiration of the state’s COVID-19 judicial emergency, the resumption of normal visitation at state prisons and the availability of a COVID vaccine “to all members of the public.” It also set minimum time intervals for the spacing of executions once they resumed.
The agreement applied to death-sentenced prisoners whose requests to have their appeals reheard were denied by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals while the judicial emergency was in place. The agreement was to remain in effect through Aug. 1, 2022, or one year from the date on which the conditions were met — whichever was later.
State officials obtained an execution order in April 2022 for Virgil Delano Presnell Jr., setting his execution for May 17, 2022. But Presnell’s lawyers with the Federal Defender Program sued, arguing the state had violated the agreement. The judicial emergency had expired in June 2021, but the lawsuit said the other two conditions remained unmet.
A Fulton County Superior Court judge agreed and halted the execution less than 24 hours before it was to take place. The state Supreme Court did not immediately rule on the state’s appeal, so the stay order remained in place until after the weeklong execution window had expired.
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled in December 2022 that the agreement was a binding contract. In a scathing concurring opinion, Justice Charlie Bethel wrote that “everyone should be able to count on the state to honor its word.”
The case returned to the lower court, where the two sides tried to reach a settlement agreement. Lawyers for the state on Feb. 27 informed the lawyers for people on death row that further settlement negotiations were not worthwhile, according to a court filing by Pye’s lawyers.
On Feb. 28, the day before the state obtained an execution order for Pye, his lawyers filed a motion for him to join the litigation over the agreement. They argued that the visitation and COVID vaccine requirements in the agreement were not yet fulfilled.
“We are beyond shocked and outraged by the fact that, in the midst of settlement discussions, the Attorney General’s office was simultaneously acting to pursue the execution of Willie Pye, one of our clients included in those talks, and doing so without informing us or the Court,” said Nathan Potek, who represents death row prisoners for the Federal Defender Program.
Pye’s appeal was decided by the 11th Circuit in April 2021, before the judicial emergency ended, and that’s the relevant date, his lawyers argued. But the three-judge panel of the appeals court didn’t reject his case, instead tossing out his death sentence. The case was reheard by the full appeals court and, ultimately, the 11th Circuit denied his appeal in March 2023, nearly two years after the judicial emergency ended.
Pye’s lawyers noted that their access to Pye remains extremely limited, saying it took more than 24 hours to arrange a phone call with him after the execution order had been issued. They added: “This is not normal or consistent with access to and availability to counsel that was previously possible, and it is unacceptable.”
The state argued that the agreement was temporary and was “expressly limited to a small subgroup of death eligible inmates.” Pye is not in that group and is thus not exempt from execution while the litigation over the agreement is pending, the state says.
The judge agreed with the state, writing that the timeline of Pye’s case is undisputed and leaves him outside of the group covered by the agreement. Pye’s lawyers are seeking to take that decision to the state Court of Appeals.
Pye’s lawyers also filed a new lawsuit last week accusing the state of violating the contract.
It’s hard to have a better start to the decade than the Georgia Bulldogs have during the 2020s.
They’ve finished ranked inside the top seven of the final AP Poll in each season of the 2020s. Georgia has appeared in four of the six College Football Playoffs in this current decade and the Bulldogs are the only team in the sport to have won multiple national championships since the start of the 2020 season.
Chip Patterson of CBS Sports stated that as it stands right now, the Bulldogs are in fact the team of the 2020s.
“From the start of the 2021 season through the end of 2023, Georgia went 42-2 with two national championship game wins and the only defeats coming to Nick Saban and Alabama in SEC Championship Game appearances,” Patterson wrote. “And while the winning percentage has dipped a bit in the last two seasons (23-5), those years have each included SEC Championship Game wins. Kirby Smart helped build the juggernaut of the 2010s with Saban, and as we stare down the final four years of the 2020s, he’s currently driving the frontrunner to be the team of the decade.”
Patterson notes that Ohio State is nipping on the heels of the Bulldogs, despite Georgia having a 3-1 edge in terms of conference championships.
Georgia is the only team with multiple national championships in this current decade, but Ohio State, Indiana and Alabama all seem like possible threats to get a second.
Oregon, Texas, Miami and Notre Dame appear to be annual threats to win a national championship. Especially in a world with an expanded College Football Playoff.
We’re past the halfway point when it comes to this decade, yet there are still four seasons left for one team to stake its claim as the dominant program of the decade. While the Bulldogs have gotten out to an early lead, there is still time for someone else to catch them.
So what do the Bulldogs have to do to ensure they remain in position to be the team of the decade?
The simplest answer is to grab another national championship. Alabama won four during the 2010s, with Smart serving as the defensive coordinator for three of them. Nebraska won three in the 1990s, while Miami did the same in the 1980s.
To get a third national title though Georgia will need more breaks than it got in 2021 or 2022. Those titles came in an era where there were just four teams in the College Football Playoff. Georgia also played just eight SEC games in those seasons. Going forward, the Bulldogs, and every other SEC team, will play nine conference games each season.
There’s also the other notable change that comes because of changes to NIL rules and the transfer portal. While NIL was legal during the 2021 and 2022 seasons, it’s a totally different beast now in terms of the way it impacts team building.
As for the transfer portal, we’ve already seen how Georgia has had to prioritize retention with its current roster. While Georgia brought in only nine players via the transfer portal, it also only lost 12 members from last season’s team. Both of those marks are the fewest in the SEC.
While Georgia has a plan when it comes to working the transfer portal, one of the questions that will ultimately define how the Bulldogs finish out the decade comes in the form of talent acquisition.
The Bulldogs signed a top 5 high school recruiting class in every recruiting cycle from 2020 through 2025 using the 247Sports Composite rankings.
Georgia’s 2020 and 2024 recruiting classes were ranked No. 1 in the country. But the 2026 recruiting cycle ranked sixth. The current 2027 class sits at No. 13, with only a small handful of targets remaining uncommitted.
Potential changes to the way the sport is governed are possible, but who knows what further consequences potential government intervention will have on the sport.
For as much as has changed in the sport from when the decade began, Georgia has been able to find stability in a way not every contender has in recent years. Consider that this year will be the fourth straight that Glenn Schumann and Mike Bobo have served as the offensive and defensive coordinators at Georgia.
Georgia’s staying power is a big reason why some view Smart as one of the top coaches in the sport.
“The argument for Smart is his program remains the gold standard for elite, sustained success even as the expanded CFP, the portal and NIL have in many ways made his job tougher,” ESPN’s Max Olson said. “He has maintained an incredibly high standard at Georgia with no bad years, finishing in the top seven of the AP poll in nine consecutive seasons, with eight trips to the SEC title game.”
If the Bulldogs continue to find themselves in the College Football Playoff, eventually the breaks will go their way. In 2022, Ohio State’s Noah Ruggles missed a 50-yard field goal attempt as time expired. Last season, Ole Miss kicker Lucas Carneiro made a 47-yard field goal in the final moments of the College Football Playoff.
Smart has always built Georgia to sustain. It’s a big reason why to this point in the decade, the Bulldogs are viewed as the team of the decade.
To ensure that title sticks throughout the rest of the decade, the Bulldogs are going to need to continue to accumulate talent at an elite level. That aspect will almost certainly look different compared to the beginning of the decade.
Ultimately, national championships will go a long way in shaping which team ends the decade as the defining team. Ohio State likely isn’t going anywhere, while Texas and others seem committed to spending whatever it takes to stay atop the sport.
Georgia is the only SEC team to make the College Football Playoff in each of the last two seasons. Oregon, Indiana and Ohio State are the only other teams to make it in both seasons.
No team has yet won a College Football Playoff game in multiple 12-team formats. Perhaps that speaks to how difficult it will be to maintain success on an annual basis.
This demonstrates just how much more difficult the task ahead is for the Georgia Bulldogs.
CRISP COUNTY, Ga. (WGXA) — Four teenagers are facing multiple felony charges for the murder of a 20-year-old man in Cordele last month.
On Friday, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced the arrests of 17-year-old Bianca Armani King-Knight, 17-year-old Kaylee Posey, and 19-year-old William Troy Posey all from Crisp County and 19-year-old Trenton Donnell Lane from Wilcox County, in connection to a shooting that left one person dead and another injured on the 1000 block of Dayton Road.
The GBI identified the victim as Correnthian Jeremiah Cooks, 20, who died at a local hospital after being found shot on around 6:45 p.m. on June 27. While the other male victim received treatment and was later released.
All four teenagers were charged with one count of felony murder and three counts of aggravated assault on June 29 and are currently being held at the Crisp County Jail.
The investigation remains ongoing, and anyone with information is urged to contact the GBI Regional Investigative Office in Americus at (229)-931-2439, the Cordele Police Department at (229) 273-3102 or submit an anonymous tip online.
Stick with WGXA as we learn more and keep you ready for what’s next.
Georgia
“Operation Southern Slow Down” returns to target speeding drivers across Georgia and Florida
Heading out on the road for a little summer vacation? Law enforcement agencies across the South have a warning: Slow down or face consequences.
The ninth annual “Operation Southern Slow Down” will run from July 13 to 19 across Georgia, Florida, Alabama, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
All five states and local law enforcement agencies will be taking part in the speed enforcement and awareness campaign, which officials say is designed to prevent crashes and save lives by reminding drivers of the dangers of speeding and reckless driving.
During the time period, drivers will see more law enforcement on roads across all five Southern states.
Last year’s operation ended with nearly 53,000 citations and warnings for speeding, 2,230 for reckless driving, and over 3,000 for violating distracted driving laws. Over 1,400 drivers were arrested on DUI charges, including 501 in Georgia.
“Operation Southern Slow Down” began in 2017 in an effort to reduce crashes and save lives. Federal crash data shows that speed was a factor in one out of five fatal traffic crashes in Georgia from 2020 to 2024. A 2023 report by the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety found that over half of those killed or seriously injured in multi-vehicle crashes where speed was a factor were not the speeding driver.
“Unsafe driver behaviors like speeding are a major contributor to fatalities and serious injuries on our roadways,” said Florida Department of Transportation Secretary Jared W. Perdue, P.E. “Remember that your actions behind the wheel can have life-altering impacts: slow down and drive responsibly to help get everyone to their destinations safely.”
Authorities say drivers should always wear a seat belt and make sure to give others who are traveling at high speeds on the roads plenty of space.
-
Business2 minutes agoMeta discontinues Instagram feature on new AI image generation tool after Hollywood backlash
-
Entertainment5 minutes agoHuey Lewis details how he ‘can’t enjoy music’ anymore because he is ‘basically deaf’
-
Lifestyle10 minutes agoTwice the stink! Two rare corpse flowers at the Huntington are set to bloom
-
Politics17 minutes agoAssassinations unleashed under Trump haunt Iran war endgame
-
Sports25 minutes agoQ&A: Partner, chance to play in Long Beach reignited AVP star Taylor Crabb’s Olympic fire
-
World35 minutes agoMoldova president nominates pro-European businessman Tofan for PM
-
News1 hour agoUS congressman says he was detained by armed Israeli settlers in occupied West Bank
-
Los Angeles, Ca2 hours agoNew details emerge in fatal stabbing of boy in El Monte
