Georgia executed a 72-year-old man, the state’s oldest death row inmate, early on Wednesday for the killing of a convenience store manager during a robbery decades ago.
Brandon Astor Jones was pronounced dead at 12-46 a.m. on Wednesday after an injection of barbiturate pentobarbital at the state prison in Jackson. He was convicted in the 1979 shooting to death of a suburban Atlanta store manager, Roger Tackett.
Mr. Jones declined to make a final statement in front of witnesses but agreed to have a prayer read.
Execution delayed
The execution had initially been scheduled for 7 p.m. on Tuesday and was delayed while the U.S. Supreme Court considered appeals from Mr. Jones’ attorneys. They asked the justices to block the execution for either of two reasons -- because Mr. Jones was challenging Georgia’s lethal injection secrecy law or because he said his death sentence was disproportionate to his crime.
