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#Post#: 417--------------------------------------------------
~ Donnie Lance, 29Jan20, (GA) ~
By: BuzzC Date: January 18, 2020, 12:55 am
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Georgia sets execution for man convicted of killing 2 people--
Friday, January 17, 2020
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ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia man convicted of killing his ex-wife
and her boyfriend more than 20 years ago is set to executed
later this month.
Donnie Cleveland Lance, 66, is scheduled to die Jan. 29 at the
state prison in Jackson, state Attorney General Chris Carr and
Department of Corrections Commissioner Timothy Ward announced
Friday. Lance was convicted and sentenced to death in the
November 1997 killings of Sabrina “Joy” Lance and Dwight “Butch”
Wood Jr. in Jackson County, about 60 miles northeast of Atlanta.
Lance has exhausted his standard appeals and the U.S. Supreme
Court declined last year to hear his case, though three justices
dissented.
According to a Georgia Supreme Court summary of the case, Lance
went to Wood’s home the night of Nov. 8, 1997, kicked in the
front door and shot Wood in the front and back with a shotgun
and then beat Joy Lance to death with the butt of the shotgun,
the summary says.
There were no witnesses and no murder weapon was ever found.
Lance's lawyers have argued that no blood or other physical
evidence linked him to the killings but that investigators
immediately focused on him to the exclusion of other suspects.
Courts have rejected his lawyers' request for DNA testing on
evidence.
Lance had long abused his ex-wife, both during their marriage
and after their divorce, according to evidence at trial. He had
beaten her with his fist, a belt and a handgun; had choked her;
and had shocked her with a car battery, the summary says. He had
also threatened her with flammable liquid, guns and a chainsaw.
He had threatened multiple times to kill her and had asked a
relative how much it might cost to hire someone to kill her and
Wood, the summary says.
He had previously gone to Wood’s home in 1993 with a shotgun and
kicked in the door, the summary says. On that occasion, he left
after a child in the home recognized and spoke to a friend who
was with him.
A jury convicted him and sentenced him to die in June 1999.
A judge tossed out his death sentence in April 2009, finding
that Lance’s trial lawyer had failed to investigate and present
evidence of Lance’s mental health history during the sentencing
phase of his trial. The judge found that evidence of Lance’s
mental impairment from brain injuries caused by car wrecks, a
gunshot wound and alcoholism could have convinced the jury to
spare his life.
The Georgia Supreme Court in January 2010 reinstated the death
sentence. The state’s highest court found that even if the
evidence had been presented, it wouldn't likely have changed the
sentence.
Federal courts declined to toss out his sentence and the U.S.
Supreme Court in January 2018 refused to take his appeal, but
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent joined by justices Ruth
Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan.
The jury never heard about physical trauma throughout Lance’s
life that caused frontal lobe damage and dementia or that his IQ
put him in the borderline range for intellectual disability,
Sotomayor wrote. Jurors also never heard that Lance’s mental
problems could affect his impulse control and ability to follow
the law, she wrote.
Lance’s trial attorney was convinced of his innocence and,
therefore prepared no mitigating evidence for the trial's
sentencing phase, Sotomayor wrote.
“The mental impairment evidence reasonably could have affected
at least one juror’s assessment of whether Lance deserved to die
for his crimes, and Lance should have been given a chance to
make the case for his life,” Sotomayor wrote.
In a petition filed last month in Butts County Superior Court,
Lance's lawyers allege that the prosecutor improperly packed the
grand jury with people whom he knew would side with him. Because
the grand jury was not randomly selected, they argue, Lance's
death sentence is invalid and unconstitutional.
Lawyers for the state countered that those arguments have been
previously raised and were rejected by the court, and the
petition should be dismissed.
Lance would be the first person executed in Georgia this year.
Jimmy Fletcher Meders was scheduled for lethal injection
Thursday, but the State Board of Pardons and Paroles commuted
his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole
just hours before the execution was scheduled to happen.
#Post#: 418--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ Donnie Lance, 29Jan20, (GA) ~
By: BuzzC Date: January 30, 2020, 8:44 am
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Georgia man silent before lethal injection for double murder
after his children plead for clemency--
Thursday, January 30, 2020
A Georgia man said nothing as he was put to death Wednesday
evening after his adult children pleaded for clemency in the
"circumstantial" 1997 murders of his ex-wife and her boyfriend.
Donnie Cleveland Lance, 66, also declined to have a chaplain say
a prayer for him when he received a lethal injection just after
9 p.m. at the state prison in Jackson.
Lance was convicted of beating Sabrina “Joy” Lance to death with
a shotgun and shooting her boyfriend Dwight “Butch” Wood Jr. in
the front and back after kicking in the door of his home
northeast of Atlanta on Nov. 8, 1997.
The prosecution said Lance had long abused his wife even after
their marriage and had threatened to kill her multiple times.
Witnesses at the trial confirmed that Lance has threatened to
kill his ex-wife if she started dating Wood.
Lance was visited by 15 family members, one friend and his
attorneys before his lethal injection Wednesday.
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