Georgia executes man for a 1993 murder
First death sentence carried out since 2020
A Georgia man was executed late Wednesday for the rape and murder of his former girlfriend in 1993, making him the first person to be executed in the state in more than four years, authorities said.
Willie James Pye, 59, was sentenced to death in the summer of 1996 for the kidnapping, murder, and rape of Alicia Lynn Yarbrough. The execution of Pye was carried out at 11:03 p.m. local time, the Georgia Department of Corrections said in a news release.
“Pye did accept a final prayer and did not record a final statement,” the state Department of Corrections said.
The planned lethal injection using the sedative pentobarbital was set at the state prison in Jackson, according to the state’s Office of the Attorney General. Pye is the first person executed in Georgia since January 2020.
The execution had been scheduled for 7 p.m. local time on Wednesday but was delayed after Pye’s lawyer filed late appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, which were denied.
In a clemency petition and other court filings, his lawyers said Pye regretted the crime and should not undergo lethal injection because he is mentally disabled – something Pye’s trial lawyer never told the jury. They also argued that the state had not met the necessary conditions to resume executions since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Had defense counsel not abdicated his role, the jurors would have learned that Mr. Pye is intellectually disabled and has an IQ of 68,” Pye’s public defenders wrote, adding that he grew up in an impoverished home and was subjected to “constant violence.”
“This is precisely the kind of evidence that supports a life sentence verdict,” his lawyers wrote.
What was Willie James Pye convicted for?
Pye, along with Chester Adams and Anthony Freeman, shot and killed Yarbrough after they abducted her and raped her in a motel room in 1993, according to the Georgia Attorney General’s Office. They had initially planned to rob the man Yarbrough was living with at the time, but when they discovered she was in the house with her baby, they kidnapped her, court filings said.
According to prosecutors, Pye was upset that another man had signed the birth certificate of Yarbrough’s baby, who Pye believed was his.
At the scene of Yarbrough’s death, police found Pye’s DNA as well as a bullet that a ballistics expert later said was likely fired from a handgun Pye had bought on the street, the attorney general’s office said. Pye initially told police he had not seen Yarbrough in two weeks but Freeman confessed and later testified against Pye and Adams, who was sentenced to life in prison.
Appeals and denials
In 1996, a trial court ordered the death sentence after Pye was convicted of malice murder and other charges. Pye filed a motion for a new trial, but it was denied.
Two years later, the Georgia Supreme Court denied his appeal and affirmed all his convictions and sentences.
Pye and his lawyers continued to appeal, alleging that Freeman’s testimony was inconsistent with other statements he made and that Pye suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome.
In 2021, a panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals granted relief and vacated Pye’s death sentence, agreeing, in part, that his trial lawyer didn’t adequately prepare for the sentencing phase of his trial.
However, after a full court review, the appeals court denied Pye relief. In October, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Pye’s appeal.