Georgia, Really Tho? The Same Parole Board That Killed Troy Davis Gave Clemency To A White Male Who Actually Killed Someone! (Spared From Death Because He Was Sorry)

" The parole board in the state of Georgia spared
a convicted killer from execution hours before he
was due to die by lethal injection on Thursday and
commuted his sentence to life in prison.

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles made its
decision less than three hours before Samuel David
Crowe, 47, was to be executed, according to a
spokeswoman for the state's prisons.

"After careful and exhaustive consideration of the
requests, the board voted to grant clemency. The
board voted to commute the sentence to life
without parole," the parole board said.

Crowe's death would have marked the third
execution since the U.S. Supreme Court lifted an
unofficial moratorium on the death penalty last
month.

Crowe was not present at the parole board hearing
in Atlanta. He had already eaten his last meal and
was preparing to enter the execution chamber at
the prison in Jackson, Georgia, Mallie McCord of
the Georgia Department of Corrections said.

In March 1988, Crowe killed store manager Joseph
Pala during a robbery at the lumber company in
Douglas County, west of Atlanta. Crowe, who had
previously worked at the store, shot Pala three
times with a pistol, beat him with a crowbar and a
pot of paint.

Crowe pleaded guilty to armed robbery and murder
and was sentenced to death the following year.

"David (Crowe) takes full responsibility for his
crime and experiences profound remorse," according
to Georgians for Alternatives to the Death
Penalty, an advocacy group, who welcomed the
board's decision.

At Thursday's hearing, his lawyers presented a
dossier of evidence attesting to his remorse and
good behavior in jail, according to local media
reports. The lawyers also said he was suffering
from withdrawal symptoms from a cocaine addiction
at the time of the crime.

The U.S. Supreme Court on April 16 rejected a
challenge to the three-drug cocktail used in most
U.S. executions, which opponents claimed inflicted
unnecessary pain. Georgia then conducted an
execution on May 5.

Georgia has executed 41 men since the Supreme
Court reinstated the death penalty in 1973 and
this week it had 109 prisoners on death row." -
Reuters