Georgia Prepares To Execute Man For Killing 22 Years Ago

Robert Earl Butts Jr. had been scheduled to die Thursday, but he won a short reprieve when Georgia’s Board of Pardons and Paroles issued a stay Wednesday to allow it extra time to weigh Butts’ clemency request. The board voted Thursday not to spare his life.

Georgia Department of Corrections via AP

Georgia is preparing to execute a man Friday evening who was convicted of robbing and killing an off-duty prison guard 22 years ago after approaching him for a ride outside a Walmart store.

Robert Earl Butts Jr., 40, is scheduled to die at 7 p.m. Friday by injection of the compounded barbiturate pentobarbital at the state prison in Jackson. Butts and Marion Wilson Jr., 41, were both convicted of murder and armed robbery in the March 1996 slaying of 24-year-old Donovan Corey Parks.

Juries in separate trials found sufficient evidence to sentence both men to death because Parks was killed during the commission of an aggravating felony, armed robbery. Wilson’s case is still pending in the courts.