Georgia set to execute man for 1982 killing of a friend

In an order released Wednesday evening, the parole board did not give a reason for declining to commute his sentence, saying only that board members had considered all materials provided to them.

If Georgia executes Conner Thursday evening, it will be the most executions in a year for the state since the death penalty was reinstated.

Conner was the 16th person executed in the United States this year and the sixth in Georgia, according to the non-profit Death Penalty Information Center. “Having been raised in nearly unimaginable circumstances of poverty and violence, Mr. Conner initially fell into the pattern modeled by those in his family”.

Conner was convicted of fatally beating J.T. White after a drink-and-drug-fueled night in January 1982. After returning home, Conner and another man, J.T. White, went for a walk with a near-empty bottle of bourbon, searching for more alcohol.

Conner claims that while they were walking, White remarked that he would like to have sex with Conner’s girlfriend, who they had left behind at the house. The men fought, and Conner hit White first with a liquor bottle then with a stick he found.

They argued that Conner grew up in impoverished conditions in a home “where vicious physical assaults, incest, sexual abuse and alcoholism were the norm” and that he has been denied a proper mental health evaluation.

From an early age, he seemed intellectually disabled to his teachers, they wrote.

The execution of a Georgia inmate has been delayed while the U.S. Supreme Court reviews his request for a stay. The Georgia Supreme Court declined to overturn that ruling.

Conner was allowed to present evidence seeking to prove intellectual disability to a federal court several years ago.

The Associated Press reported that Conner’s lawyers argued in their challenge Thursday that executing him after he’s spent 34 years on death row would be unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment and would amount to double jeopardy.

The drugs, however, also have other medical uses, which can make it tricky to keep them from ending up being used in state prisons to carry out executions.

Conner’s lawyers have argued that the inmate is intellectually disabled and, therefore, shouldn’t be executed. There are presently 61 men on death row in Georgia.

Asked how he was doing, Conner said his appeals were running out, but smiled and said, “I’m hanging in there”. He lifted a corner of his mattress and pulled out a stack of colorful watercolor landscapes. “I’m still kicking. In here, that’s a good thing”.