Georgia Prisoner Says He is Not the Shooter, Seeks Stay of Execution to Permit DNA Testing

Supported by the mur­der victim’s daugh­ter, a Georgia death-row pris­on­er who is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion October 30, 2019 is ask­ing the fed­er­al courts to grant him a stay to per­mit DNA test­ing that, he says, will prove that he did not com­mit the killing for which he is on death row. Ray Cromartie (pic­tured) admits his involve­ment in the rob­bery in which Richard Slysz was mur­dered, but main­tains that his co-defen­dant shot the victim. 

Cromartie has filed peti­tions in the Georgia state and fed­er­al courts seek­ing DNA test­ing of shell cas­ings, cloth­ing, and a cig­a­rette pack from the crime scene. Slysz’s daugh­ter, Elizabeth Legette, wrote a let­ter to the Georgia Supreme Court urg­ing that court to per­mit DNA test­ing. ​“My father’s death was sense­less. Executing anoth­er man would also be sense­less, espe­cial­ly if he may not have shot my father. … Today I learned that the State has set a date to exe­cute Mr. Cromartie with­out doing any test­ing. This is wrong, and I hope that you will take action to make sure that the testing happens.”

On October 25, the Georgia Supreme Court denied his requests. Assistant fed­er­al defend­er Shawn Nolan, who is rep­re­sent­ing Cromartie in fed­er­al court, said evi­dence that Cromartie was not the shoot­er would have dra­mat­i­cal­ly altered the jury’s under­stand­ing of the mur­der and Cromartie’s cul­pa­bil­i­ty for the killing. ​“With the clock tick­ing, there is still time to pre­vent an unjust exe­cu­tion if the courts rec­og­nize Ray Cromartie’s civ­il right to get the DNA evi­dence test­ed before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion on October 30^th,” Nolan said in a state­ment. Cromartie’s fed­er­al court com­plaint chal­lenges the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Georgia’s law on post-con­vic­tion DNA test­ing and its appli­ca­tion by Georgia courts. It describes the advances in DNA sci­ence that would make test­ing today more fruit­ful than test­ing at the time of Cromartie’s trial. 

As Cromartie’s exe­cu­tion date approached, his lawyers took the unusu­al step of decid­ing not to file a clemen­cy peti­tion. ​“Filing a clemen­cy peti­tion would have required Mr. Cromartie to ask for a sen­tence of life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole, but there is sim­ply too much doubt in his case to ask for this sen­tence in good faith,” Nolan wrote. ​“Only by test­ing the DNA can Georgia ensure Mr. Cromartie’s jury was cor­rect to impose death because he was the shoot­er. Georgia offi­cials must agree to DNA test­ing in this case before it’s too late; oth­er­wise, the state risks an unjust execution.”

Cromartie’s case bears strik­ing sim­i­lar­i­ties to that of Ruben Gutierrez, who also is seek­ing DNA test­ing that he says will prove his co-defen­dant killed the vic­tim. A Texas coun­ty court had sched­uled Cromartie’s exe­cu­tion for October 30, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay because of irreg­u­lar­i­ties in the county’s issuance and ser­vice of the death warrant.