Georgia executes man convicted of raping, killing woman he met at

Wednesday night the state Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Johnson’s request for clemency and court after court on Thursday also rejected his appeals, in which he claimed he was innocent of murdering Angela Sizemore.

A Butts County Superior Court judge on Wednesday rejected a constitutional challenge to Johnson’s sentence and conviction and declined to stop his execution. (Under Georgia law, the board has that power, not the governor.) Johnson’s lawyer is now appealing to the state’s supreme court.

Marcus Ray Johnson is scheduled to died by lethal injection on November 19 at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson at 7:00 p.m. Johnson was convicted of a 1994 rape and murder and sentenced to death. Johnson met Sizemore at a club and the two were spotted kissing and drinking heavily and were seen leaving together.

Her body was found lying across the passenger seat of her vehicle the following morning by a man walking his dog. She was stabbed 41 times with a small, boring knife. Johnson has admitted having consensual sex with Sizemore, then punching her in the nose and drawing blood because she later insisted on “snuggling”. He has repeatedly failed. “The miscarriage of justice in this case would be if the victim’s 26-year-old daughter, who was five at the time of her mother’s murder, is not allowed closure in this case”.

On Tuesday, the Georgia Department of Corrections said in a news release that Marcus Ray Johnson’s request for a six-pack of beer as his last meal was denied because alcohol is a contraband item.

NBC News reports that Johnson has made a decision to have the same meal as other death row inmates Thursday evening instead: baked fish, cheese grits, beans, coleslaw, cookies, and fruit punch.

Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1973, a total of 57 men and one woman have been executed in Georgia, according to the Department of Corrections.