Georgia Grants Clemency Just Before Execution

On July 9, just one day before he was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed, Tommy Lee Waldrip was grant­ed clemen­cy by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles. Waldrip will now serve a sen­tence of life with­out parole. Although the Board did not give a rea­son for its deci­sion, one of the issues raised in the case was the dis­pro­por­tion­al­i­ty of Waldrip’s sen­tence com­pared to that of his co-defen­dants. Three men were involved in the mur­der that sent Waldrip to death row, but the oth­er two were giv­en life sen­tences. One of those was Waldrip’s son, who was direct­ly involved in killing the vic­tim. He has been eli­gi­ble for parole since 1998. Waldrip is the ninth death row inmate to receive clemen­cy in Georgia since 1976, and the 275^th in the nation. This is the sec­ond clemen­cy grant­ed in the U.S. in 2014.

(R. Cook, ​“Waldrip’s death sen­tence com­mut­ed to life with­out parole,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 10, 2014). See Clemency and Arbitrariness.