A Georgia man scheduled to be executed next week has made the unusual decision not to file a clemency petition seeking to reduce his sentence and spare his life, his lawyers said Wednesday.
Ray Jefferson Cromartie, 52, is scheduled to be put to death Oct. 30 at the state prison in Jackson. He was convicted of malice murder and sentenced to die for the April 1994 slaying of 50-year-old convenience store clerk Richard Slysz in Thomasville, just north of the Florida line. Cromartie also was convicted of shooting and gravely injuring another convenience store clerk a few days earlier.
The State Board of Pardons and Paroles is the only authority in Georgia that can commute a death sentence. The board can reduce the sentence to life or life without the possibility of parole, according to its website. It typically holds a meeting the day before a scheduled execution to consider a clemency petition from a condemned inmate.
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