Georgia executes prisoner who kidnapped, raped and killed his ex-girlfriend in 1993

(AFP) A man who kidnapped, raped and killed his ex-girlfriend in 1993 was executed in recent hours, in the first application of the death penalty in more than four years in the state of Georgia.

Willie Pye, 59, was executed by lethal injection at 11:03 p.m. in a prison in Jackson, Ga. The Supreme Court and the State Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected a last-minute clemency petition filed by Pye.

In its argument in favor of clemency, the defense stated that Pye suffers from a mental disability, with an IQ of 68, and that he lived a traumatic childhood full of "profound poverty, neglect, constant violence and chaos in his family home." Furthermore, according to his attorneys, he was poorly represented at trial by a "racist, overworked public defender," who has since died.

Pye, a 59-year-old African-American, was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of Alicia Yarbrough, a woman with whom he had sporadic relations and who he kidnapped and raped along with two accomplices.

The sentence had been annulled in 2021 by an appeals court that considered that he had an insufficient public defense, since his lawyer did not invoke that he presented signs of said mental disability. However, the death sentence was reimposed in 2022.

Pye did not record a final statement, but did accept a final prayer, the Georgia Department of Corrections said in a statement.

This is the third execution that has been carried out this year in the country.

Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 states and has been suspended in another six: Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

Last year, 24 executions were carried out in the country, most by lethal injection.