One spared, one executed: Georgia inmate wins last-minute stay as Texas carries out lethal injection
A Georgia death row inmate won a last-minute stay of execution this week, just hours before he was scheduled to die, while Texas carried out a separate lethal injection the same day.
Stacey Humphreys, 53, had been set to receive lethal injection on Wednesday, Sept. 16, in Georgia. But less than 24 hours before the scheduled execution, Cobb County Superior Court Judge Tyler Browning granted a stay tied to a new state law that allows some prisoners to seek a reduced sentence if past abuse was a significant contributing factor to their crime.
The ruling, obtained by USA TODAY after it was issued late Tuesday, did not decide whether Humphreys deserves a new sentence. Instead, Browning agreed with defense attorneys that the issue should be heard in court. On Wednesday, the Georgia Supreme Court allowed the stay to remain in place while the case proceeds.
Humphreys was convicted in the 2003 killings of two real estate agents in Powder Springs, an Atlanta suburb. The victims, 21-year-old Lori Brown and 33-year-old Cyndi Williams, were forced to disrobe, robbed of their debit cards and shot execution-style, authorities said.
The stay marked the second time in less than a year that Humphreys had avoided execution at the last minute. He had been scheduled to die on Dec. 17, but the state parole board halted that execution amid conflict-of-interest allegations involving two board members who were weighing whether to grant him clemency. A judge later found that one member did not have a conflict but ordered another to recuse herself.
His execution was then rescheduled for Sept. 16. The reduced board voted against clemency, setting the stage for another scheduled lethal injection before the court intervened.
In court filings, Humphreys' attorneys argued that severe abuse he suffered as a child was a major factor in the murders. Defense attorney Nathan Potek wrote that Humphreys' early life and adolescence were marked by chaos, neglect and physical, emotional and sexual abuse.
Potek said Humphreys spent his earliest years with a seriously mentally ill mother before being raised by a violent father. From age 6 to 13, he spent nearly every weekend with a paternal great-grandmother who sexually abused him, according to the filing. Potek also described sexual abuse that lasted from age 5 to 14. The abuse also included cigarette burns across his body, a skull fracture at age 3, a dislocated shoulder at age 4 and repeated beatings throughout childhood, Potek wrote.
The 2025 law at the center of the stay, the Georgia Survivor Justice Act, permits people sentenced before July 1, 2025, to seek a reduced sentence if they were subjected to family violence, dating violence or child abuse and that abuse was a significant contributing factor to the offense.
The Georgia Attorney General's Office has not disputed the abuse Humphreys suffered, but it argues that the law does not apply to him. Prosecutors contend the measure was not intended for death row inmates and that applying it in such cases would undercut a jury's ability to impose the death penalty. A spokeswoman for the office declined to comment on the stay, citing the ongoing case.
Potek said in a statement to USA TODAY that he looked forward to arguing the matter before the Georgia Supreme Court. He said the new law gives effect to scientific evidence showing that children who endure severe trauma, like Humphreys, face a higher risk of negative mental health consequences and criminal behavior later in life, through no fault of their own.
Within hours of the confirmation that Humphreys would not be executed Wednesday, Texas put 40-year-old LeJames Norman to death for the 2005 murders of three neighbors in Edna, about 100 miles southwest of Houston.
Norman was executed by lethal injection and pronounced dead at 6:44 p.m. CT, becoming the fifth inmate executed in Texas this year and the 26th in the United States.
According to court records, Norman and his friend Ker'Sean Ramey were looking for cocaine on Aug. 24, 2005, when they decided to rob their neighbor, 38-year-old Celso Lopez. The two forced their way into Lopez's home and held him at gunpoint while searching for drugs. At some point, Norman shot Lopez, though he claimed it was an accident.
Lopez's roommates, 18-year-old Tiffani Peacock and 24-year-old Sam Roberts, who were dating, walked in on the scene. Norman forced Peacock to her knees and shot her in the head, records say. Roberts tried to flee, but both Norman and Ramey shot him. Ramey shot all three victims several more times to ensure they were dead, according to court records.
During Ramey's 2007 trial, prosecutor Eli Garza described the killings as an execution, according to an archived story in the Victoria Advocate.
Norman's attorneys argued in recent weeks that he deserved mercy because he was remorseful and because a troubled and abusive childhood led him toward the murders. They also said his trial lawyers failed to fully investigate whether he had suffered brain trauma from what court records described as an extraordinary level of violence he experienced as a child.
Peacock's older sister, Tabatha Munnerlyn Hastings, told USA TODAY that she chose not to attend Norman's execution because it was too emotionally difficult.
"I believe in accountability and justice for what was done to her," Hastings said. "At the same time, I do not view an execution as something to celebrate."
She said her faith teaches her that "eternal judgment belongs to Christ, and vengeance belongs to God."
"Nothing can bring Tiffani back, so my hope is that she is remembered for her life, not only for the crime committed against her," she said.
She described her sister as being on the cusp of college and dreaming of becoming a veterinarian and trying out for American Idol.
"She was only 18 years old. Her whole life was still ahead of her," Hastings said. "Her life mattered before it ever became part of a court case, and it still matters today."
The next scheduled execution in the U.S. is set for Thursday, Sept. 17, when Alabama plans to execute Jeffery Lee for a double murder during a 1998 pawn shop holdup in Orrville, about 60 miles west of Montgomery.
Lee killed Elaine Thomas and Jimmy Ellis, who was a noted Elvis impersonator at the time. Ellis performed under the stage name Orion, and a 2015 documentary, Orion: The Man Who Would Be King, told his life story.
The judge in Lee's case sentenced him to death despite a jury voting 7-5 for life in prison without parole, a practice known as judicial override that Alabama abolished in 2017. The decision still draws protests today.
Lee, now 50, had been scheduled to be executed by nitrogen gas on June 11, but two days earlier a federal judge in Alabama blocked the state from carrying it out, ruling that the method amounted to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Alabama rescheduled the execution and will use lethal injection instead.
"The legal process has run its full and proper course," Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a June statement. "The people of Alabama have not forgotten Jimmy and Elaine. I have not forgotten them. Anything short of carrying out the sentence imposed by the court falls short of justice for the victims, and that is not what victims of this state deserve."
Contributing: Swasti Singhai, USA TODAY, and Sarah Clifton, the Montgomery Advertiser.
Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime and courts reporter who covers the death penalty, cold cases and breaking news for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: One spared, one executed: Georgia inmate wins last-minute stay as Texas carries out lethal injection