Georgia Set to Execute Man Jurors Would Have Sentenced to Life Without Parole

On January 16, Georgia plans to exe­cute Jimmy Meders (pic­tured in his National Guard uni­form), a man whom jurors say they would have sen­tenced to life with­out parole if that option had been avail­able and who, state sen­tenc­ing prac­tices sug­gest, would not face the death penal­ty today. For those rea­sons, Meders’ lawyers say in court plead­ings and an appli­ca­tion before the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, his exe­cu­tion would vio­late con­tem­po­rary stan­dards of decen­cy and he should be granted clemency. 

Meders was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1989 for the mur­der of a con­ve­nience store clerk dur­ing an armed rob­bery. During the tri­al, pros­e­cu­tors told jurors they should sen­tence Meders to die, assert­ing that he was the trig­ger­man who shot the store clerk in the chest and the head. Meders has con­sis­tent­ly main­tained that he did not shoot anyone. 

Shortly after begin­ning their penal­ty-phase delib­er­a­tions, the jury sub­mit­ted a ques­tion to the court ask­ing whether they could sen­tence Meders to life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. The court advised them that they could not. That option, say Meders’ lawyers from the Southern Center for Human Rights, was not avail­able under Georgia law until four years lat­er, in 1993, when the Georgia state leg­is­la­ture amend­ed its death-penal­ty statute to autho­rize life with­out parole as a sentencing alternative. 

That sen­tenc­ing option would have changed the out­come of the case, Meders’ jurors say. According to the affi­davit of the jury foreper­son, the jurors did not want Meders to face exe­cu­tion, “[b]ut that was the only option if we want­ed to make sure he didn’t get out.” Another juror wrote that ​“would not have vot­ed for a death sen­tence” if there had been assur­ances that Meders could not have been released. All eight sur­viv­ing jurors in Meders’ case now sup­port his peti­tion for clemen­cy and six signed affi­davits say­ing that they would not have imposed the death penal­ty if they could have sen­tenced Meders to life without parole. 

Citing Georgia tri­al and sen­tenc­ing sta­tis­tics, Meders’ lawyers also say he would not have been sen­tenced to death if tried today. Their data show that no one in Georgia has been sen­tenced to death in more than a decade for the rob­bery and mur­der of a sin­gle vic­tim. Likewise, no dis­trict attor­ney has even sought the death penal­ty in such a case in the past eight years, they say. As a result, they argue, Meders’ death sen­tence ​“is dis­pro­por­tion­ate accord­ing to the con­tem­po­rary stan­dards of decen­cy of the peo­ple of Georgia.”

“This should nev­er have been a death-penal­ty case,” Meders’ lawyer, the Southern Center’s Mike Admirand, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. ​“Had he been tried in 2020 and not 1989, Mr. Meders would not receive a death sentence.”

Meders is also seek­ing DNA test­ing that he believes will prove that he was not the shoot­er and that two key wit­ness­es — Greg Creel and Bill Arnold — who tes­ti­fied for the pros­e­cu­tion that Meders shot the store clerk lied to the jury about his involve­ment in the mur­der. The tri­al court denied his motion for DNA test­ing on January 8, and Meders has appealed that deci­sion to the Georgia Supreme Court.