An execution scheduled for next week would be the first in Georgia in more than four years. The state is trying to move past an agreement made amid the coronavirus pandemic that effectively halted lethal injections.
Willie James Pye, 59, is set to be put to death March 20. He was convicted of murder and other crimes in the November 1993 killing of his former girlfriend, Alicia Lynn Yarbrough.
Georgia last carried out an execution in January 2020. In April 2021, the state attorney general’s office entered into an agreement with attorneys for death row prisoners to suspend executions for a certain group of prisoners and to establish conditions under which they could resume.
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