Convicted murderer’s stay of execution denied

Published 2:56 pm Tuesday, May 16, 2017

The state Supreme Court today denied a stay of execution for convicted murderer J.W. “Boy” Ledford, Jr., who is scheduled to be put to death at 7 tonight by lethal injection.

The vote was 8 to 1. In today’s decision, all of the justices agreed except Justice Robert Benham, who dissented. Judge Tilman E. Self III of the Georgia Court of Appeals sat by designation in place of Justice Britt Grant, who was disqualified.

Ledford, 45, has been behind bars since he killed his neighbor, 73-year-old Dr. Harry Johnston Jr., in January 1992 in Murray County.

In addition to denying Ledford’s motion for a stay of execution, the state Supreme Court has also denied his request to appeal today’s ruling by the Butts County Superior Court.

Earlier today, that court denied his motion for a stay and rejected his attorneys’ claim that his age at the time of the crime should make him ineligible for the death penalty. Under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in Roper v. Simmons, it is unconstitutional to execute anyone who was under the age of 18 at the time of the crime.

“Ledford’s attorneys wanted the Georgia Supreme Court to raise the minimum age to 21, arguing that ‘neuroscience has shown that an adolescent brain does not fully mature until a person is in his mid-20s,'” according to a press release from the state Supreme Court. “State and federal laws imposing minimum age requirements on such things as consumption of alcohol and obtaining a concealed carry handgun permit confirm that young adults aged 18, 19, and 20 are not as responsible as those over 21, the attorneys contended. They also argued that the death penalty largely has fallen into disuse nationally and internationally for people 18-to-21.”