Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole Denies Clemency for Willie Pye, Scheduled for March 20 Execution, Amid Pending Secrecy and Equal Protection Lawsuits

On March 19, 2024, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole denied clemen­cy for Willie Pye (pic­tured), who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on March 20, despite argu­ments that he has an intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty and is there­fore inel­i­gi­ble for exe­cu­tion, per Georgia state law and U.S. Supreme Court prece­dent. Convicted in 1996 for the 1993 mur­der of his ex-girl­friend, Alicia Yarbrough, Mr. Pye has spent the last 28 years on Georgia’s death row. Mr. Pye’s case has also gen­er­at­ed pub­lic con­cern due to the noto­ri­ous racism of his tri­al attor­ney, Johnny Mostiler, against Black defen­dants. At least two pend­ing law­suits seek to delay or pre­vent Mr. Pye’s execution.

The state’s order sched­ul­ing Mr. Pye’s exe­cu­tion, which would be the first exe­cu­tion in Georgia in over four years, prompt­ed a law­suit by the ACLU of Georgia and The Appeal news orga­ni­za­tion against the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col. The plain­tiffs argue that Georgia’s ​“severe restric­tions on press access” to exe­cu­tions vio­late the First Amendment. Georgia allows jour­nal­ists only ​“lim­it­ed audi­to­ry access” to exe­cu­tions, and bars them from see­ing the death cham­ber for most of the process, includ­ing the place­ment of the IV line. ​“Having mem­bers of the press dur­ing the entire exe­cu­tion process is the only way bru­tal prob­lems are revealed,” said Gerry Weber, an attor­ney for the plain­tiffs. ​“Secreting the exe­cu­tion process hides its real­i­ty.” The law­suit asks the court for an injunc­tion pre­vent­ing Georgia from con­duct­ing exe­cu­tions until the ​“uncon­sti­tu­tion­al lim­its” on media wit­ness­es are removed.

Mr. Pye’s attor­neys are also chal­leng­ing his exe­cu­tion on equal pro­tec­tion grounds, argu­ing that he was unlaw­ful­ly exclud­ed from a COVID-era agree­ment that pro­tect­ed oth­er death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers. Georgia’s pause in exe­cu­tions dates back to March 2020, when the pan­dem­ic prompt­ed the Georgia Supreme Court to declare a judi­cial emer­gency that would halt all pend­ing exe­cu­tions. Many attor­neys for indi­vid­u­als on the state’s death row feared that as their clients reached final appeals, these new restric­tions would pre­vent them from prepar­ing clemen­cy appli­ca­tions and lit­i­ga­tion. In April 2021, the Federal Defender Program in Atlanta and the Georgia Attorney General’s Office reached an agree­ment to not seek any new exe­cu­tion dates until the emer­gency was lift­ed, nor­mal vis­i­ta­tion was rein­stat­ed, and the COVID-19 vac­cine was read­i­ly avail­able to ​“all mem­bers of the pub­lic.” This agree­ment only applied to pris­on­ers who exhaust­ed their appeals dur­ing the judi­cial emer­gency, which was lift­ed in June 2021. Mr. Pye’s appeals were exhaust­ed in 2023. His attor­neys now argue that the state has vio­lat­ed the 14^th Amendment guar­an­tee of equal pro­tec­tion by exclud­ing Mr. Pye from the agree­ment and cre­at­ing ​“a dis­tinct, dis­fa­vored class of death row pris­on­ers, one with­out the base­line guar­an­tee of ade­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion,” said Nathan Potek, one of Mr. Pye’s attorneys.

In his request for clemen­cy, Mr. Pye’s attor­neys called his 1996 tri­al ​“a shock­ing rel­ic of the past,” cit­ing the severe lim­i­ta­tions of the Spalding County pub­lic defend­er sys­tem in the 1990s, in which just one attor­ney rep­re­sent­ed all indi­gent defen­dants. Mr. Pye’s court-appoint­ed attor­ney, Johnny Mostiler, spent just 150 hours on his case, includ­ing jury selec­tion and the tri­al itself. According to Mr. Pye’s clemen­cy peti­tion, Mr. Mostiler worked with one oth­er attor­ney and an inves­ti­ga­tor in hun­dreds of felony cas­es, as well as his pri­vate prac­tice, and ​“effec­tive­ly aban­doned his post,” while rep­re­sent­ing Mr. Pye. At tri­al, Mr. Mostiler did not present impor­tant mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence sur­round­ing Mr. Pye’s intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty and adverse child­hood expe­ri­ences, which could have per­suad­ed a jury to sen­tence Mr. Pye to life in prison without parole.

“Had defense coun­sel not abdi­cat­ed his role, the jurors would have learned that Mr. Pye is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled and has an IQ of 68,” attor­neys wrote in his clemen­cy appli­ca­tion. They added that had the jury ​“learned the chal­lenges [Mr. Pye] faced from birth —pro­found pover­ty, neglect, con­stant vio­lence and chaos in his fam­i­ly home— fore­closed the pos­si­bil­i­ty of healthy devel­op­ment,” the out­come of tri­al may have dif­fered. Multiple experts have test­ed Mr. Pye’s IQ score, with a state expert, Dr. Glen King, mea­sur­ing his ​“full scale IQ at 68” and oth­er test­ing plac­ing his IQ at 70. Medical pro­fes­sion­als and experts acknowl­edge ​“that it is pos­si­ble to diag­nose intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty in indi­vid­u­als with IQ ranges from 70 – 75 or below.” Despite Georgia being the first state to bar the exe­cu­tion of intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled indi­vid­u­als, it is the only state that requires a defen­dant to prove intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty beyond a rea­son­able doubt, rather than by the pre­pon­der­ance of evi­dence. Consequently, just one defen­dant has suc­cess­ful­ly raised an intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty claim in the past three decades.

Mr. Pye’s clemen­cy peti­tion point­ed to numer­ous adverse child­hood expe­ri­ences that his tri­al coun­sel failed to present to jurors dur­ing the sen­tenc­ing phase. He was raised in extreme pover­ty and ​“was not only lack­ing the food and shel­ter nec­es­sary for a child to thrive, but oth­er neces­si­ties as well— oppor­tu­ni­ties to face new intel­lec­tu­al chal­lenges, to prac­tice motor skills, to learn lan­guage and to appre­ci­ate nor­mal social attach­ments.” Mr. Pye’s child­hood home lacked indoor plumb­ing, a tra­di­tion­al kitchen, and a func­tion­ing, indoor bath­room. Childhood friends of Mr. Pye recalled that ​“in a com­mu­ni­ty where most of us didn’t have much, [his] fam­i­ly had noth­ing at all.” The peti­tion also out­lines neglect and abuse from both of Mr. Pye’s par­ents, who had alco­hol depen­den­cy prob­lems. Mr. Pye’s moth­er drank heav­i­ly dur­ing her preg­nan­cy, and his attor­neys argued that he suf­fered from brain dam­age that may be the result of fetal alco­hol syn­drome, which impacts an individual’s impulse control.

Additionally, Mr. Pye’s clemen­cy peti­tion detailed the pos­i­tive impacts he has had on fel­low pris­on­ers, cor­rec­tion­al staff, and his fam­i­ly, through­out his 28 years behind bars. Reverend Rick Moncrief, a vol­un­teer prison chap­lain at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, told his attor­neys that ​“in the many hours [he’s] spent talk­ing with [Mr. Pye], [he] nev­er heard him say any­thing unkind about oth­ers in the prison, fel­low inmates, guards – any­one.” Rev. Moncrief added that he has ​“had many spir­i­tu­al con­ver­sa­tions with Willie” through­out his incar­cer­a­tion and that Mr. Pye has told him sev­er­al times ​“that he bears the respon­si­bil­i­ty for the crime. He is very remorseful.”