Ga. board denied killer's clemency bid

By SHANNON McCAFFREY – 7 hours ago

ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia board has denied condemned killer William Earl Lynd's clemency bid, paving the way for him to likely become the nation's first inmate put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court held that lethal injection is constitutional.

Lynd, 53, still has an appeal pending before the Georgia Supreme Court seeking to stay his execution, which is scheduled for Tuesday at 7 p.m. It is unclear when the state's top court will act on that request.

Lynd's lawyer, Tom Dunn, appealed to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, arguing that medical testimony presented at Lynd's 1990 trial was flawed and the jury that sentenced him to death never learned of a possible mitigating factor: He had been sexually molested by neighbors at age 8.

The five-member board rejected his plea on Monday.

Lynd's execution would be the first since the U.S. Supreme Court last month upheld Kentucky's lethal injection protocol, clearing the way for executions to resume in the roughly three dozen states that use that method.

Lynd was sentenced to death for kidnapping and killing his live-in girlfriend, Ginger Moore, two days before Christmas in 1988.

Prosecutors at Lynd's trial said Moore suffered a slow agonizing death, regaining consciousness twice after successive gunshot wounds to the head at the home she and Lynd shared in Berrien County, in south Georgia. The medical examiner testified that Moore was still alive when Lynd stuffed her into the trunk of her car and took a drive. Lynd confessed to authorities that when he heard her thumping around in the trunk, he opened it and fired the final lethal shot.

The allegation that Lynd kidnapped Moore before she died was an essential "aggravating" circumstance that made him eligible for the death penalty. It also helped prosecutors show the slaying was premeditated.

But Lynd's lawyers argued Monday the medical examiner who did Moore's autopsy was not a physician and was wrong in asserting that she would have been able to regain consciousness after the second shot. There would have been more blood in the trunk had she still been alive, they said.

A doctor hired by the defense to examine the evidence found that Moore did not survive the second gunshot wound and was already dead when she was placed in the trunk, making Lynd innocent of the kidnapping charge. The original medical examiner, Warren Tillman, now agrees it is unlikely she was alive when placed in the car, according to Dunn's legal filing.

Dunn said Lynd and Moore had consumed Valium, alcohol and marijuana and were in a heated argument over a trip to Florida when he shot her.

"This crime was hot blooded and without premeditation," reads Dunn's application to the parole board. "Tragic — yes. Cold blooded — no."

After Lynd buried Moore's body in a shallow grave near a south Georgia farm authorities said he fled to Ohio where he shot and killed another woman who had stopped along the side of the road to help him.

Vigils are expected around the state Tuesday night by death penalty opponents. And Lynd has requested his last meal from state corrections officials: two pepper jack barbecue burgers with crisp onions; two baked potatoes with sour cream, bacon and cheese and a strawberry milkshake.

Meanwhile, a Mexican-born Texas prisoner whose death sentence set off an international dispute and a U.S. Supreme Court rebuke of the White House, also received an execution date Monday.

Texas State District Judge Caprice Cosper set the Aug. 5 lethal injection for 33-year-old Jose Medellin for his participation in the gang rape and strangulation deaths of two teenage girls 15 years ago in Houston when they stumbled upon a gang initiation rite.

The Supreme Court in March refused to hear Medellin's appeal, saying President Bush overstepped his authority by ordering Texas to reopen his case and the cases of 50 other Mexican nationals condemned for murders in the U.S. Texas refused to comply.

Medellin is among 14 native Mexicans on death row in Texas. Mexico has no death penalty and sued the United States in the world court in 2003. Mexico and other opponents of capital punishment have sought to use the world court to fight for foreigners facing execution in the U.S.

Associated Press writer Michael Graczyk in Houston contributed to this story.