Monday’s order by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney halted a Georgia execution that was scheduled for Dec. 17, directing that additional issues raised in Stacey Humphreys’ clemency case be resolved before the state could carry out his death sentence.
The judge’s ruling came as Humphreys, 52, remained under sentence after being convicted in the 2003 shooting deaths of Cyndi Williams, 33, and Lori Brown, 21, at a real estate office in Cobb County, northwest of Atlanta. The execution had already been paused just days before Humphreys was to have received a lethal injection.
Humphreys’ legal challenge centered on Georgia’s clemency process. His lawyers contended that the participation of two members of Georgia’s parole board would taint the clemency hearing, and they asked a court earlier in December to order the board members to recuse themselves.
In Monday’s filings, McBurney sided with the request to pause the execution while the clemency-question is addressed. In the order, the judge wrote that “pressing ‘pause’ on the execution machinery until we answer the non-frivolous question raised by Petitioner concerning the proper composition of the Board for his clemency hearing is the correct course of action.”
The defense argued that Kimberly McCoy previously worked as a victim advocate with the Cobb County district attorney’s office during Humphreys’ trial and was assigned to work with victims in the case. His lawyers also argued that Wayne Bennett, a parole board member who was sheriff in Glynn County, was involved in security for the jurors and for Humphreys during proceedings moved there because of pretrial publicity.
McBurney ordered that both sides file additional legal briefs by Jan. 19. The judge also wrote that Humphreys should have the conflict of interest question “researched and argued thoroughly,” with the goal of ensuring that a parole board free of conflicts of interest can decide his case at a clemency hearing.
State action on Humphreys’ clemency petition, and any next step toward execution, will therefore depend on the outcome of the additional briefing and court review of whether McCoy and Bennett should be removed from the parole board’s clemency consideration.