UPDATE, 10 p.m.:
Georgia has executed a man convicted of robbing and killing an off-duty prison guard 22 years ago.
Authorities say the death sentence of 40-year-old Robert Earl Butts Jr. was carried out at 9:58 p.m. Friday.
Butts and 41-year-old Marion Wilson Jr. were convicted and sentenced to death in the March 1996 slaying of Donovan Corey Parks.
Prosecutors say Butts and Wilson asked Parks for a ride outside a Walmart store in Milledgeville on March 28, 1996, and then ordered him out of the car and fatally shot him a short distance away.
Wilson's case is still pending.
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9:15 p.m.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday denied a stay of execution for a man convicted of killing an off-duty prison guard 22 years ago, clearing the way for the state of Georgia to give him a lethal injection.
Robert Earl Butts Jr., 40, was scheduled to die Friday night by injection of the compounded barbiturate pentobarbital at the state prison in Jackson. Butts and Marion Wilson Jr., 41, were both convicted of murder and armed robbery in the March 1996 slaying of 24-year-old Donovan Corey Parks.
The decision by the nation's highest court was issued without comment or explanation. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Supreme Court said no more filings were expected Friday.
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5 p.m.
The Georgia Supreme Court has denied a stay of execution for a man convicted of killing an off-duty prison guard who gave him a ride outside a Walmart store 22 years ago.
Robert Earl Butts Jr., 40, is scheduled to die at 7 p.m. Friday by injection of the compounded barbiturate pentobarbital at the state prison in Jackson. Butts and Marion Wilson Jr., 41, were both convicted of murder and armed robbery in the March 1996 slaying of 24-year-old Donovan Corey Parks.
Juries in separate trials found sufficient evidence to sentence both men to death because Parks was killed during the commission of an aggravating felony, armed robbery. Wilson's case is still pending in the courts.
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