A series of legal fillings have been made by attorneys representing Willie James Pye in an attempt to delay his execution, which is scheduled for Wednesday.
Hearings have been set in federal court and with the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles in the coming days to determine whether or not Pye’s execution will continue as scheduled at the Georgia Diagnostic Prison in Jackson at 7 p.m. on March 20.
Pye was convicted of shooting and killing Alicia Lynn Yarbrough, with whom he had a sporadic romantic relationship, in November 1993 in Spalding County. He was indicted on charges of malice murder, felony murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, armed robbery, burglary, rape, and aggravated sodomy on Feb. 7, 1994. Trial began on May 28, 1996.
A jury found Pye guilty on all counts except felony murder and aggravated sodomy on June 6, 1996. The next day, the jury recommended a death sentence.
Last week, a Fulton County judge denied Pye’s attempt to avoid execution and allowed him to seek appellate review of that order. The Georgia Supreme Court denied the request to review the Fulton judge’s decision Thursday.
A hearing was held in Fulton County Wednesday to deal with Pye’s temporary restraining order and interlocutory injunction, as well as, the state’s motion to dismiss. The judge denied Pye’s motions and granted the state’s motion to dismiss.
A hearing took place Friday morning in federal court where Pye’s motion for a temporary restraining order. A federal court judge denied Pye’s motion and dismissed the case, with Pye’s attorneys appealing to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
According to the order, Pye has already lost his fundamental right to life and Pye is the “only death-eligible prisoner in the state, he is expressly excluded from the agreement and the state has a clear interest in carrying out the sentence imposed by the courts.”
On Tuesday, the state parole board will hold a clemency hearing that is closed to the public.
The Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty organization plans to gather outside the meeting room on Monday to deliver petitions and letters in support of commutation of Pye’s death sentence. The group also plans to hold vigils throughout the state on the day of Pye’s execution.
After being convicted, Pye appealed his death sentence multiple times in state and federal court. On Oct. 30, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Pye’s request to appeal a district court’s decision to deny his federal habeas relief, ending Pye’s direct appeal proceedings and state and federal habeas corpus proceedings.
Attorneys from the Federal Defender Program are arguing that a 2021 agreement by the Georgia Attorney General’s Office delaying most Georgia executions until after the COVID-19 pandemic, applies to Pye. The AG’s office says it does not.
The state agreed to halt most executions until after the pandemic, and it gave three conditions that must be met before they would resume: the statewide judicial emergency in place at the time had to be lifted, normal visitation would resume at state prisons and the vaccine would be “readily available to all members of the public.”
It also said the first person killed when executions resumed would be Billy Raulerson, who sits on death row for killing three Ware County residents in 1993. The state said it would not seek new execution warrants for any other inmate “before a total of six months after the time the above three conditions are met.”
In 2022, officials set a date for the execution of longtime death row inmate Virgil Delano Presnell Jr., even though none of the three conditions had been met. The Federal Defender Program filed a lawsuit, leading a Fulton County judge to issue an injunction halting Presnell’s execution the night before it was set to take place.
Pye’s execution order states he is “not a party” to the agreement, the Fulton County injunction and case. If executed, Pye will become the 54th inmate put to death by lethal injection.
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