The execution in Georgia of Marcus Johnson for the 1994 rape and murder of Angela Sizemore – who was stabbed 41 times with a dull knife – was "most deserving," said the district attorney who prosecuted the case.
Johnson, 50, had appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court for a reprieve, but his requests were denied and his execution was carried late Thursday,
The Washington Post reported.
Johnson had been scheduled to die at 7 p.m. in Jackson, but the execution was delayed three hours awaiting information on appeals.
Johnson was found guilty of killing Sizemore after they met in a bar in Albany, Georgia. She was found beaten and sexually assaulted hours after they left together. The Post said Johnson has maintained his innocence for years, and his attorneys said in Supreme Court filings that "conviction for murder is based on fundamentally inaccurate and unreliable evidence."
Johnson attorney Brian Kammer said in a statement that the execution "deepens the moral stain on the state of Georgia,"
The Associated Press reported.
"Georgia should be erring on the side of caution, not rushing its citizens pell mell to the execution chamber," Kammer said after Johnson was executed.
Ken Hodges, who was the Dougherty County district attorney during Johnson's trial, told AP, "Of all the death penalty cases I had, what happened to the victim in this case was the most vile and reprehensible of any. He was the most deserving of the death penalty."
Sizemore was stabbed 41 times with a dull knife, and sexually assaulted with a pecan branch, said the AP.
Hodges attended the execution and sat beside Sizemore's daughter.
On Tuesday, Texas executed Raphael Holiday for murdering his daughter and two step-daughters in a fire he set on their mobile home,
Reuters reported.
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