Ga. court temporarily stays execution

Man sentenced to death for convenience store clerk killing

ATLANTA — With about eight hours to spare before a man convicted of killing a convenience store clerk was to be put to death Wednesday, the state’s highest court stepped in and temporarily halted the scheduled execution.

Ray Jefferson Cromartie, 52, was to receive a lethal injection at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the state prison in Jackson. But the Georgia Supreme Court issued a stay of execution, saying “it appears that the pending execution order may be void.”

Cromartie was convicted of malice murder and sentenced to death for the April 1994 killing of 50-year-old Richard Slysz in Thomasville, just inside Georgia’s southern border. The state says Cromartie also shot and seriously injured another convenience store clerk a few days earlier.

Cromartie insists he didn’t shoot either clerk. His attorneys asked the trial court to order DNA testing on evidence in the case last year and requested a new trial. Southern Judicial Circuit Senior Judge Frank Horkan rejected those requests last month, and Cromartie’s lawyers on Oct. 11 asked the state Supreme Court for permission to appeal that ruling.

While that request was pending, an execution order filed Oct. 16 in Thomas County Superior Court set a seven-day window for the execution beginning at noon Wednesday and ending at noon Nov. 6. State officials scheduled the execution for 7 p.m. Wednesday.

The high court’s order Wednesday says the execution order may be void because the application for appeal filed by Cromartie’s attorneys was pending and the case was under the jurisdiction of the state Supreme Court at the time.