Plea denied, Georgia man looks headed for execution
ATLANTA - Barring a last-minute intervention by the courts, a Georgia man who killed his girlfriend is likely to become the first inmate put to death since a US Supreme Court review halted executions in September.
The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied William Earl Lynd's appeal for clemency yesterday, rejecting his lawyer's argument that forensic evidence at his 1990 trial was flawed and clearing the way for his execution, scheduled for 7 p.m. today.
Lynd, 53, has a request for a stay before the Georgia Supreme Court, but preparations are moving forward for his execution. He would be the first inmate put to death since the US Supreme Court ruled last month that Kentucky's method of executing inmates with a three-drug injection is constitutional. Following the decision to review Kentucky's lethal injections, three dozen states stopped executing inmates for seven months.
Lynd was sentenced to die for kidnapping and shooting his live-in girlfriend, Ginger Moore, 26, in south Georgia in 1988, after the two consumed drugs and alcohol. Prosecutors said she suffered a slow, agonizing death, regaining consciousness twice after being shot in the head.
The medical examiner testified that Moore was still alive when Lynd stuffed her into the trunk of her car. The allegation that Lynd kidnapped Moore before she died was what made him eligible for the death penalty. But Lynd's lawyers argued the medical examiner who did Moore's autopsy was wrong to say she could have survived the second shot.
A doctor hired by the defense found that Moore was dead when she was placed in the trunk, which would make Lynd innocent of kidnapping, his attorneys said.
