A Georgia man convicted of killing his former girlfriend three decades ago is scheduled to be put to death Wednesday in what would be the state’s first execution in more than four years.
Willie James Pye, 59, was convicted of murder and other crimes in the November 1993 killing of Alicia Lynn Yarbrough. The planned lethal injection using the sedative pentobarbital is set to happen at 7 p.m. at the state prison in Jackson.
In their request for clemency, Pye’s lawyers called the 1996 trial “a shocking relic of the past” and said the local public defender system had severe shortcomings in the 1990s.
The death penalty has only one “‘viable’” use and that’s for when for whatever reason, a person is too dangerous to be incarcerated in any possible way. In modern times this would almost never happen outside of maybe drug kingpins or despotic ex-dictators. As much as we shouldn’t have to rely on incarceration like like we do, it’s even more barbaric to kill someone who could easily be locked up.
Agreed. It’s over used and unfairly racially applied.
Even taking this case at face value, it’s a pretty basic murder trial. What warranted the death penalty?
“in more than 4 years”…
Even “in more than 40 years” seems too recent to me. Barbaric, imo
