Naval vet­er­an Travis Hittson (pic­tured), sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed by Georgia on February 17, has filed an appli­ca­tion for clemen­cy with the State Board of Pardons and Paroles. Hittson assist­ed his supe­ri­or offi­cer, Edward Vollmer, to kill and dis­mem­ber a fel­low sailor, Conway Utterbeck in 1992. Despite evi­dence that Vollmer was the more cul­pa­ble of the two, pros­e­cu­tors per­mit­ted him to plead guilty and receive a life sen­tence from which he could be paroled, while Hittson was sen­tenced to death. The clemen­cy appli­ca­tion, filed by lawyers from the Veterans Defense Program and the Georgia Resource Center, alleges that Hittson’s death sen­tence is dis­pro­por­tion­ate to the pun­ish­ment Vollmer received, giv­en the sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence in their cul­pa­bil­i­ty. The appli­ca­tion says: ​“Mr. Hittson com­mit­ted an appalling act; an act which took the life of Conway Utterbeck and harmed his fam­i­ly in pro­found and irrepara­ble ways. Those who know Mr. Hittson, how­ev­er – even law enforce­ment per­son­nel who knew him only long enough to hear him con­fess and assist in the inves­ti­ga­tion of this crime – are unit­ed in their con­vic­tion that he is remorse­ful and would nev­er have com­mit­ted this ter­ri­ble crime absent the delib­er­ate manip­u­la­tion of his code­fen­dant and naval supe­ri­or, Edward Vollmer.” Vollmer con­vinced Hittson to help him kill Utterbeck by telling him that Utterbeck was plot­ting to kill them. ​“Mr. Hittson’s low­er rank, gulli­bil­i­ty, alco­holism and des­per­a­tion for approval made him pecu­liar­ly vul­ner­a­ble to Edward Vollmer who, by all accounts, exer­cised an unnat­ur­al dom­i­nance and con­trol over Mr. Hittson,” the clemen­cy fil­ing explains. Hittson’s appli­ca­tion for clemen­cy is sup­port­ed by oth­er sailors who served with both Hittson and Vollmer, sev­er­al jurors in the case, and an unnamed state pros­e­cu­tor. The exe­cu­tion would be the sec­ond in Georgia in 2016. Andrew Brannan, the first per­son exe­cut­ed in Georgia last year, was also a vet­er­an. Brannan suf­fered from chron­ic Postraumatic Stress Disorder and oth­er severe men­tal ill­ness relat­ed to his mil­i­tary ser­vice in Vietnam and was con­sid­ered 100% dis­abled by the Veterans Administration. 

(B. Rankin, ​“Death row inmate who killed sailor pleads for clemen­cy,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, February 12, 2016.) See Arbitrariness and Clemency.

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