ATLANTA – A state panel has rejected a convicted murderer’s last-minute plea for a reduced sentence, setting the stage for the state’s first execution this year. 

J.W. “Boy” Ledford Jr. has been behind bars since he killed his neighbor, 73-year-old Dr. Harry Johnston Jr., the very physician who delivered Ledford decades before the murder. 

 

Ledford is scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday at 7 p.m. – nearly 25 years after the murder took place in Murray County. Last year, the state executed nine people. 

Johnston’s widow died in February, which made a clemency hearing held Monday even more emotional, said District Attorney Bert Poston. 

“It was very important to her that she live long enough to see justice done,” Poston told reporters after the hearing. “We were just about three months too late for her to have been able to see this.” 

The death penalty case marks a rarity for the rural northwest Georgia community. There hasn’t been one since a jury handed Ledford his sentence in 1992. 

The five-member state Board of Pardons and Paroles announced its decision at about 6:30 p.m. Monday, after spending the day hearing arguments for and against granting Ledford clemency on the eve of his scheduled death. 

Ledford was 20 when he killed the doctor, and his attorneys asked the state panel to consider his age and his intellectual disability when deciding whether to spare his life. 

His attorneys also argued that Ledford was under the influence of drugs and alcohol at the time of the murder and noted his dependence on drugs and alcohol, which dated back to his childhood.

Ledford is deeply remorseful, they said. 

Ledford’s attorneys argued that board members should reduce his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole – an option that was not available to jurors at the time of the trial. 

Five jurors have since said they would have preferred to send Ledford to prison for the rest of his life, but chose the death penalty because they did not want him to be released, according to Ledford’s application for clemency. 

Poston, who was an assistant district attorney at the time of the trial, said the individual opinions of jurors now are irrelevant. 

“To me, the jury as a body speaks, and once that jury is excused by the judge, then those individual members of the juries – their opinions don’t matter,” Poston said. “The jury itself as a unit has spoken. I pity the former juror who years later has an attorney or investigator knock on the door and try to pressure them into saying that. 

Poston also said it’s unclear whether Ledford was under the influence at the time of the murder, and he said the evidence indicates that Ledford went to the doctor’s home with the intention of robbing them. Ledford left with cash and firearms. 

Ledford’s attorneys, John Cline of San Francisco and Mary E. Wells of Atlanta, declined to talk to the media Monday. 

Ledford’s mother, Mattie Ledford, his six sisters and others were scheduled to speak during the hearing, which is not open to the public. They also did not speak to reporters Monday. 

“J.W. Ledford and his loved ones recognize that the relief they request is extraordinary,” Wells wrote in Ledford’s clemency application. “But it is clearly within the power of this Board to grant this relief in exceptional circumstances.” 

As a last meal, Ledford has requested filet mignon wrapped in bacon with pepper jack cheese, large french fries, 10 chicken tenders with sauce, a fried pork chop, a blooming onion, a pecan pie with vanilla ice cream, sherbert and Sprite.

The 45-year-old unsuccessfully sought to be executed by a firing squad rather than lethal injection. 

His attorneys argued that death by lethal injection is unconstitutional because it would he would “suffer an excruciating death” due to Ledford’s long-term use of prescription medications for “severe and chronic nerve pain,” according to court documents. 

“His long-term exposure to this medication has changed the chemistry of his brain so that (Ledford’s) lethal injection drug, pentobarbital, will not reliably render him unconscious and insensate,” attorneys argued in court documents. 

Jill Nolin covers the Georgia Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach her at jnolin@cnhi.com.