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GEORGIA (USA): MARCUS A. WELLONS EXECUTED
June 17, 2014: Marcus A. Wellons, 59, Black, was executed in the nation's first execution conducted since the botched lethal injection in Oklahoma of Clayton Lockett on April 29.
The Georgia Department of Corrections declared that Wellons had died at 11:56 p.m. late Tuesday night at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison in Jackson.
DOC officials had originally scheduled the prisoner's execution for 7 p.m. last night. But minutes before his scheduled death, Wellons' attorneys Gerald King and Mary Elizabeth Wells filed several requests for a stay of execution with the U.S. Supreme Court asking for a stay of execution given the "troubling and substantial constitutional issues" surrounding the case.
Georgia officials had also submitted paperwork requesting that the court rule against the inmate's petitions. More than three hours later, Wellons' lawyers informed news outlets that the U.S. Supreme Court denied the inmate's stay request.
DOC officials lethally injected Wellons using compounded pentobarbital.
His execution marked Georgia's first state-authorized killing since a law passed in 2013 that allowed the state's corrections department to keep secret the identity of its drug suppliers.
In 1993, Wellons was found guilty for the Aug. 31, 1989 rape and murder of India Roberts, 15. Following his death, media witnesses told reporters that nothing appeared to have went wrong with Wellons' execution aside from one guard fainting.
Georgia Public Broadcasting's Adam Ragusea reported that lethal injection observers said the procedure took a longer than expected and noticed Wellons twitch one time.
Wellon becomes the 1st inmate executed this year in Georgia, the 54th since Georgia resumed capital punishment in 1983, the 21st inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1380th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. (Sources: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, clatl.com, 17/06/2014)
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