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Condemned murderer Brandon Astor Jones loses another appeal
"An appellate court on Friday rejected another attempt by Brandon Astor Jones to stop his execution scheduled for Tuesday for the 1979 murder of a Cobb County convenience store manager.
Late in the afternoon, a judge in Butts County, which is where Georgias execution chamber is located, said the issues raised in Jones appeal were decided years ago and cannot be revisited.
Jones lawyers argued in the appeal that its rare for a murderer to be sentenced to die if the crime that made the case eligible for the death sentence was armed robbery. A death sentence can be given only in certain circumstances, such as when certain felonies were committed at the same time as the murder, if the crime was exceptionally horrendous, or if a law enforcement officer was killed..."
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/condemned-murder-brandon-astor-jones-loses-another/nqFs9/
Watch killer die? Victims kin won't. Co-defendants son might
"The widow and daughter of the man Brandon Astor Jones murdered in 1979 dont plan to watch his execution, scheduled for Tuesday evening.
They will be together at the Cherokee County home of Katie King, who was 7 when her father was killed.
Brandon Astor Jones is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection for the 1979 murder of Roger Tackett.
I will be at peace, being with my mom, said King, referring to Christine Bixon.
Bixon who was Christine Tackett until she remarried four years after her husbands murder said she did not attend the execution of Jones co-defendant Van Roosevelt Solomon 30 years ago and she doesnt plan to attend the one set for Tuesday at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison outside Jackson.
But Zuberi Solomon, who was 2 when his father and Jones murdered convenience store manager Roger Tackett, has asked the Department of Corrections to allow him to be a witness. He has not received an answer.
He said he wanted to see the face of the person that destroyed two families...."
http://www.myajc.com/news/news/local/execution-witnesses-victims-kin-no-co-defendants-s/nqFks/
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Death-Row Inmate's Case Targets Georgia's Strict Secrecy Law
"Lawyers for an inmate set to die in days are asking a conflicted federal appeals court to weaken Georgia's law that keeps secret the source of the state's lethal injection drug. It's the toughest of a number of secrecy laws passed in recent years by death penalty states eager to stabilize their execution drug supplies.
States say the laws protect companies that fear retaliation for their association with the death penalty. Most were enacted after drug manufacturers, many of them in Europe, stopped selling their products for executions, citing ethical concerns.
"There are certainly secrecy laws in other states, and some of them create extraordinary secrecy, but nothing reaches the level of Georgia," said Megan McCracken, a death penalty expert at the University of California at Berkeley.
Georgia stopped a lethal injection in March because of a problem with the drug, the barbiturate pentobarbital made by a compounding pharmacy. A Department of Corrections video shows solid white chunks falling against the syringe's plunger in a solution that should be clear. Citing this example, some 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges have expressed concern about Georgia's secrecy law...."
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/death-row-inmates-case-targets-georgias-strict-secrecy-36591359
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Things to Know: The death penalty and execution drugs
"ATLANTA (AP) Executions in the United States have been on a fairly steady decline in recent years, dropping to 28 last year the lowest since 1991. A peak of 98 came in 1999.
Difficulty obtaining lethal injection drugs after many manufacturers stopped selling their products for use in executions has made it tough for some states to execute existing death row inmates. Other reasons for the decline include better legal representation for those facing the death penalty, life-in-prison sentences without parole, and the high cost of death penalty prosecutions...
Heres a look at some death penalty facts and figures..."
http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/things-to-know-the-death-penalty-and-execution-drugs/
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