The Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles has halt­ed the exe­cu­tion of Robert Earl Butts, Jr. (pic­tured), less than 24 hours before the state intend­ed to put him to death. On May 2, the Board stayed Butts’s exe­cu­tion for up to 90 days, say­ing it need­ed addi­tion­al time ​“to exam­ine the sub­stance of the claims offered in sup­port of the appli­ca­tion.” In a news release accom­pa­ny­ing the issuance of the stay, the Board said it had received a ​“con­sid­er­able amount of addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion … regard­ing the case” and, ​“because the Board under­stands the impor­tance and seri­ous­ness of its author­i­ty and respon­si­bil­i­ty,” it issued a stay. Board spokesper­son Steve Hayes said the Board ​“will con­tin­ue con­sid­er­a­tion of the case and at a lat­er date make a final deci­sion” and that deci­sion ​“could come dur­ing the stay or at the end of the 90-days.” The Board has the pow­er to lift the stay, allow­ing the exe­cu­tion to pro­ceed, or grant clemen­cy to Butts, com­mut­ing his sen­tence to life with­out parole. Because Georgia death war­rants remain active for a full week, Butts remains at risk of immi­nent exe­cu­tion if the Board lifts the stay on or before May 10. A new exe­cu­tion war­rant would be required to exe­cute Butts if the Board denies his com­mu­ta­tion request and lifts the stay after that date. Butts’s clemen­cy peti­tion claims that he did not shoot Donovan Corey Parks, the off-duty cor­rec­tion­al offi­cer killed dur­ing a car­jack­ing, but that his co-defen­dant, Marion Wilson, was the trig­ger­man. The appli­ca­tion includes a sworn state­ment from Horace May — a jail­house infor­mant who had tes­ti­fied at tri­al that Butts had con­fessed to him — say­ing that he had fab­ri­cat­ed the con­fes­sion after Wilson had asked him to tes­ti­fy against Butts. The peti­tion also says the jury was giv­en unsup­port­ed, false, and inflam­ma­to­ry infor­ma­tion that Wilson and Butts were gang mem­bers and the killing was gang-relat­ed. Wilson is also sen­tenced to death, and cur­rent­ly has an appeal pend­ing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. Butts also argued that his per­son­al cir­cum­stances and his remorse for his involve­ment in the killing pro­vid­ed ​“com­pelling grounds for mer­cy.” Butts was just 18 at the time of the crime and, the peti­tion says, endured ​“pro­found child­hood neglect” from par­ents who ​“left him to care for his younger sib­lings while they roamed the streets of Milledgeville, each in the grip of men­tal ill­ness, drug addic­tion or both.” In addi­tion, the clemen­cy peti­tion argues that exe­cu­tion is a dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly severe pun­ish­ment in light of the unwill­ing­ness of juries to impose the death penal­ty today in sim­i­lar cas­es. In the past decade, no Georgia jury has sen­tenced any defen­dant to death in a case like this that involved a sin­gle vic­tim and only one aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance. [UPDATE: The Board lift­ed the stay late in the day on May 3, and the state exe­cut­ed Butts on May 4.] 

(Kate Brumback, Board grants stay of exe­cu­tion for con­demned Georgia inmate, Associated Press, May 2, 2018; Rhonda Cook, Ga. parole board issues stay of exe­cu­tion; killer was to die Thursday, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 2, 2018; Rhonda Cook, Awaiting exe­cu­tion this week, Robert Earl Butts Jr. asks for clemen­cy, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 1, 2018; Press Release, Parole Board Issues Stay in Robert Earl Butts, Jr., Case, State Board of Pardons and Paroles, May 2, 2018; Order Staying the Execution of Sentence of Death, State Board of Pardons and Paroles, May 2, 2018.) Read the clemen­cy peti­tion and sup­ple­men­tal mate­ri­als. See Clemency and Upcoming Executions.

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