JACKSON, Ga. — UPDATE, 9:57 p.m.:
Georgia has executed the man convicted of robbing and killing an off-duty prison guard in 1996.
The death sentence of 42-year-old Marion Wilson was carried out at 9:52 p.m. Thursday.
Wilson and Robert Earl Butts were convicted and sentenced to death in the March 1996 slaying of Donovan Corey Parks.
Prosecutors say Wilson and Butts 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.
Butts was executed on May 4, 2018.
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UPDATE, 9 p.m.:
(AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a request to halt plans by the state of Georgia to execute an inmate for a 1996 shotgun slaying.
The lawyers for 42-year-old Marion Wilson Jr. had asked as the scheduled 7 p.m. execution time approached that the nation's high court block Georgia from carrying out the death sentence so that a lower court decision rejecting Wilson's claims could be reviewed.
Earlier Thursday, the Georgia Supreme Court rejected two court challenges by Wilson.
The Supreme Court said in a brief statement late Thursday that the request for a stay had been denied.
Wilson and Robert Earl Butts Jr. were convicted of murder and sentenced to death in the March 1996 slaying of Donovan Corey Parks. Authorities have said Butts and Wilson asked Parks for a ride outside a Walmart store in Milledgeville and then fatally shot him a short distance away. The pair then stole Parks' car.
Butts was executed in May 2018.
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The Georgia Parole Board had denied clemency for Marion Wilson, the man facing execution Thursday night for a Baldwin County murder.
After a hearing yesterday, the board released a statement Thursday morning saying they've reviewed the evidence and Wilson's case file, and decided NOT to reduce his sentence.
His lawyers argued for clemency, claiming there isn't enough evidence to support a death sentence.
Wilson remains on death row at a state prison in Jackson for the 1996 killing of Donovan Parks.
He is scheduled to be executed sometime after 7 p.m.