The state of Georgia on Wednesday executed death row inmate Willie Pye, who was convicted and sentenced to die for the 1993 murder of Alicia Lynn Yarbrough.
The execution – Georgia’s first in more than four years – was carried out by lethal injection at 11:03 p.m. at a prison in Jackson, about 50 miles south of Atlanta, the Georgia Department of Corrections said in a news release. Pye did not make a final statement, the release said.
Pye, 59, was put to death after the US Supreme Court denied his final appeals late Wednesday. In a clemency petition and various court filings, Pye and his attorneys had argued for his life to be spared, citing an intellectual disability, a troubled upbringing and ineffective assistance of counsel.
The primary aim of the justice system is to secure convictions. If those who are convicted happen to also be actually guilty of the crimes they are charged with, that’s just gravy.