The Georgia Pardons and Parole Board com­mut­ed Samuel Crowe’s death sen­tence to life with­out parole just two and a half hours before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion on May 22, 2008. The five-mem­ber Board’s state­ment said, ​“After care­ful and exhaus­tive con­sid­er­a­tion of the request, the board vot­ed to grant clemen­cy.” The Board had heard from sev­er­al peo­ple who knew Crowe, includ­ing pas­tors and a for­mer cor­rec­tions offi­cer, who said, ​“I felt like if they released him that morn­ing he would nev­er get in any more trou­ble and he could make a con­tri­bu­tion to soci­ety,” and called him a ​“peace­mak­er” amongst prison inmates. Crowe’s attor­ney, Ann Fort, com­ment­ed, ​“He deeply regrets what he did,” and that at the time of the crime Crowe was ​“in the throes of a ter­ri­ble drug addic­tion. He has worked hard every day to in some way to atone for what he did.” This is just the third time out of 24 requests since 1995 that the Board com­mut­ed a death sentence.

(R. Cook, ​“Georgia Murder’s Execution Halted at Last Minute,”, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 22, 2008). See Clemency. There have been 242 com­mu­ta­tions of death sen­tences since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976. This is the sec­ond com­mu­ta­tion in 2008. There have been 7 com­mu­ta­tions in Georgia since 1976. View video-dis­cus­sion from Moblogic​.tv with Samuel Crowe’s defense attor­neys after the commutation.

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