dictionary

Mentally ill man wins stay of execution in Georgia

Alexander Williams

From staff and wire reports

ATLANTA (Reuters) -- Georgia's Supreme Court Tuesday granted an indefinite stay of execution to a mentally ill prisoner who had been scheduled to go to the electric chair this week for the murder of a teenage girl, a state official said.

The court decision came several hours after lawyers for Alexander Williams, 32, asked the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to halt the execution, scheduled to take place Thursday evening at a state prison in Jackson, Georgia.

"We just found out in the last hour," said Kathy Browning, a spokeswoman for the parole board. "This means that the parole board doesn't make a decision now because there is no impending execution."

ALSO Letter from President of the Children's Defense Fund Letter from French Presidency of the European Union     MESSAGE BOARD What are your thoughts on executing someone with a mental illness? Death Penalty

RESOURCES State-by-state Guide to the Minimum Age Eligible for the Death Penalty

CASE FILE Death Penalty and DNA

Williams, a paranoid schizophrenic who dresses up like the Lone Ranger and talks with invisible frogs in his prison cell, was sent to death row for the 1986 abduction, rape and murder of 16-year-old Aleta Bunch in Augusta.

Williams, who was 17 at the time of the murder, would have been the fifth child offender to be executed in the United States this year. His case has provoked outcry from the international community.

Copyright 2000 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

U.S. Supreme Court rejects emergency appeals in Texas double execution
August 9, 2000
Texas man put to death for murders 14 years ago
August 9, 2000
Texas executes man said to be mentally retarded
August 9, 2000
Why states don't confess error in death penalty cases
June 12, 2000

Georgia Department of Corrections
European Union Policy and Action on the death penalty
Justice For All
National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.