Capital punishment is legal in the U.S. state of Georgia. Georgia reintroduced the death penalty in 1973 after Furman v. Georgia ruled all states' death penalty statutes unconstitutional. The first execution to take place afterwards occurred in 1983.
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As of November 20, 2015, 59 people in total have been executed since then. As of January 1, 2017, 58 men are on death row awaiting execution.
Legal process
When the prosecution seeks the death penalty, the sentence is decided by the jury and must be unanimous.
In case of a hung jury during the penalty phase of the trial, a life sentence is issued, even if a single juror opposed death (there is no retrial).
The power of clemency belongs to the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles, which consists of five members appointed by the governor with advice and consent of the state senate.
Lethal injection is the only method of execution authorized by statutes.
Capital crimes in Georgia
The following are the current capital crimes in the state of Georgia:
- Offender has a prior capital conviction.
- Offender was in the process of committing another capital crime, aggravated battery, burglary, or arson.
- Offender used or possessed a weapon or device capable of causing significant harm to more than one person simultaneously.
- Offender committed offense for monetary gain.
- The victim was or had been a judicial officer, district attorney, or solicitor general, and was murdered for reasons relating to their employment as such.
- Murder-for-hire
- The victim was tortured.
- The victim was a law enforcement officer or firefighter and was performing his/her official duties.
- The offender was in the custody of, or had escaped from, law enforcement or a correctional facility.
- The offender was resisting arrest.
- The offender had a prior conviction for rape, aggravated sodomy, aggravated child molestation, or aggravated sexual battery.
History
The first execution in Georgia was in 1735. The offender was indentured servant Alice Wyley, who had murdered her master. From 1735 to 1924, the method of execution was hanging. The last hanging occurred in 1931. Between 1735 and 1931, over 500 hangings occurred in Georgia. In August, 1924, the Georgia General Assembly outlawed hanging and introduced electrocution instead. Georgia then used this method until 1972, when Furman v. Georgia declared the capital punishment procedures unconstitutional. Electrocution was re-instated, along with the death penalty, in 1976 as a result of Coker v. Georgia. In 2000, the General Assembly passed a new law instituting lethal injection instead of electrocution.
Overall, 1,010 executions have occurred in Georgia since 1735, the fifth highest total in the union.