Georgia Supreme Court denies stay of execution to Travis Hittson
https://twitter.com/ajccourts/status/700043137255927808
Georgia Supreme Court denies stay of execution to Travis Hittson
https://twitter.com/ajccourts/status/700043137255927808
"I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
- Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian
"There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
- Rev. Richard Hawke
“There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
- Rowan Atkinson
The Latest on the scheduled execution of 45-year-old Travis Hittson for a 1992 murder in Georgia. (all times local):
5 p.m.
Lawyers for a Georgia prisoner who is hours away from being put to death are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review their claims that their client's constitutional rights were violated.
Travis Hittson, a former Navy crewman, was convicted in the 1992 murder of fellow sailor Conway Utterbeck. He's set to be executed at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
His lawyers contend his constitutional rights were violated during sentencing when a judge allowed a state psychologist who had examined Hittson to recount damaging statements Hittson had made about Utterbeck.
A judge in Butts County on Tuesday rejected those arguments and the Georgia Supreme Court on Wednesday said Hittson's request for the court to consider his appeal lacks merit under state law.
Hittson's lawyers are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Georgia Supreme Court's rejection.
4:15 p.m.
The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has delayed the next parole consideration for the co-defendant of a man who's set to be executed Wednesday.
Travis Hittson, a former Navy crewman, is set to die by injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital at 7 p.m. at the state prison in Jackson. He was convicted in the April 1992 murder of fellow sailor Conway Utterbeck.
Edward Vollmer, who was also accused in the killing, reached a plea deal with prosecutors and is serving a life sentence. He was denied parole in 1999 and again last year. When his parole was denied last year, the board said it would next consider his case in 2020.
But based on evidence offered Tuesday at Hittson's clemency hearing, the board on Wednesday reset the reconsideration of his case for 2024, the maximum delay allowed by parole board rules.
An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.
"Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd
SCOTUS DENIED, but there is another appeal pending before SCOTUS.
An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.
"Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd
I feel like Georgia is the only state who lets them have appeal after appeal even after the scheduled execution.
Georgia executes ex-Navy sailor for 1992 murder of shipmate
JACKSON, GA. — Georgia has executed former Navy sailor Travis Clinton Hittson for the gruesome 1992 murder of a fellow shipmate.
Hittson, 45, was put to death by lethal injection at 8:14 p.m.
On his final day of life, Hittson met with two relatives, four friends and eight members of his legal team.
For his last meal, he ate the same dinner as his fellow inmates: meat loaf and gravy, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots, red beans, cornbread, bread pudding, and an orange beverage.
Hittson was scheduled to die at 7 p.m. but, as is usually the case, there were delays while the state waited for all the courts to decide whether the execution should be stopped.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay of execution this evening, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled this afternoon that Hittson’s request lacked merit, and on Tuesday the State Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected Hittson’s plea that his sentence be commuted to life without parole.
A Houston County jury condemned Hittson to die for the April 5, 1992, murder of Conway Utterbeck.
According to court records, Hittson’s lead petty officer, Edward Vollmer, told Hittson to kill Utterbeck, 20, on the pretense that Utterbeck was planning to kill them.
All three men were sailors that spring aboard the USS Forrestal, an aircraft carrier based in Pensacola, Fla. On the weekend of the murder, Vollmer invited Hittson and Utterbeck to come with him to his parents’ home in Georgia. Vollmer’s parents were out of town.
Hittson and Vollmer spent that Saturday night at area bars while Utterbeck stayed behind at Vollmer’s parents’ house. As they drove home from their night of drinking, Vollmer argued that shipmate Utterbeck was going to kill them both and they needed to “get him” first.
Once at his parents’ house, Vollmer put on a bullet-proof vest he had in his car and retrieved a handgun and a sawed-off shotgun for himself, according to court records. He gave Hittson an aluminum bat.
Hittson hit Utterbeck in the head several times before dragging him to the kitchen where Vollmer waited with a .22-caliber handgun. Hittson shot Utterbeck in the head as he begged for his life.
Hittson and Vollmer later dismembered Utterbeck’s body. They buried Utterbeck’s torso in Houston County and took the remaining body parts to Pensacola. The two men tossed the body parts into several dumpsters after they had reported for duty the morning of April 6, 1992.
Vollmer pleaded guilty to avoid trial and was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. He has already been denied parole three times — in 1999, last year and today — and the Parole Board has said it will review his case again in 2024.
According to Hittson, who confessed to the crime but demanded a trial, the murder was Vollmer’s idea.
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/d...cution-/nqRwX/
"There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche
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