Stacey Humphrey’s execution halted over parole board’s ‘conflict of interest’ | EUROtoday

A Georgia choose on Monday briefly halted a December execution that had already been placed on maintain, citing that questions in regards to the state’s clemency course of should be addressed earlier than Stacey Humphreys’ loss of life sentence can proceed.

Humphreys, 52, was scheduled for execution on Dec. 17, however the deadly injection was paused simply days beforehand.

He was convicted of malice homicide and different fees within the 2003 taking pictures deaths of Cyndi Williams, 33, and Lori Brown, 21, at their Cobb County actual property workplace, northwest of Atlanta.

The authorized dispute facilities on Humphreys’ attorneys’ claims that two Georgia parole board members have conflicts of curiosity that might compromise a clemency listening to.

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Humphreys’ attorneys earlier this month filed a petition asking a choose to order the 2 members of the parole board to recuse themselves from contemplating his clemency petition.

The attorneys mentioned a kind of board members, Kimberly McCoy, was beforehand a sufferer advocate with the Cobb County district legal professional’s workplace on the time of Humphreys’ trial and was assigned to work with victims within the case.

Another board member, Wayne Bennett, was the sheriff in Glynn County, the place the trial was moved due to pretrial publicity. Humphreys’ attorneys say Bennett oversaw safety for the jurors and Humphreys himself through the case.

In an order filed Monday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney 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.”

He ordered attorneys for either side to file extra authorized briefs on the problem by Jan. 19.

Additionally, the choose wrote in his order that Humphreys deserves to have the battle of curiosity query researched and argued totally so {that a} parole board freed from conflicts of curiosity can determine his case at a clemency listening to.