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Georgia Resource Center

Ensuring that all people on Georgia’s death row have meaningful and vigorous representation

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Our Work

Ricky DuBose Found Dead on Death Row

June 26, 2022

Just 10 days after a jury sentenced him to death in Putnam County, Ricky DuBose was found dead in his cell on death row at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, in an apparent suicide. He was the youngest person on death row. The GBI is investigating his death.

Filed Under: News

U.S. Supreme Court Rules in Favor of GRC Client Michael Nance

June 23, 2022

On June 23, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of GRC client Michael Nance, who had challenged the constitutionality of his execution by lethal injection, in light of his unique medical conditions. In proceedings below, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals had held that Mr. Nance could not bring his claim in a… Read More →

Filed Under: News

First Post-Pandemic Death Sentence in Georgia

June 16, 2022

Ricky DuBose was sentenced to death by a jury in Putnam County, for the murders of corrections officers Curtis Billue and Christopher Monica in 2017. In September 2021, in the first post-pandemic death penalty trial in Georgia, the jury in Mr. DuBose’s codefendant Donnie Rowe’s case rejected the death penalty and sentenced him to life… Read More →

Filed Under: News

Judge Stays Execution of Virgil Presnell

May 16, 2022

On April 27, 2022, the State of Georgia scheduled the first post-pandemic execution, for Virgil Presnell on May 17, 2022. The Federal Defender Program, which represents Mr. Presnell, filed a breach of contract action against the Attorney General’s Office, on grounds that the Office violated a contract that specified how execution-eligible cases would be scheduled… Read More →

Filed Under: News

Case Challenges Georgia’s Burden of Proof in Intellectual Disability Cases

March 19, 2021

Lawyers for Rodney Young, a man on Georgia’s death row, have asked the Georgia Supreme Court to find the state’s requirement that people facing the death penalty must prove intellectual disability beyond a reasonable doubt unconstitutional, following the United States Supreme Court decisions in Hall v. Florida and Moore v. Texas. While Georgia was the… Read More →

Filed Under: News

Seven People Exonerated from Georgia’s Death Row since 1973

March 15, 2021

After conducting an exhaustive search of death sentences since 1973, the Death Penalty Information Center added Howard Jackson Stack to its list of people who were exonerated after being sent to death row. After a reversal by the Georgia Supreme Court, the charges against Mr. Slack were dismissed in 1975. Mr. Slack’s case brings the… Read More →

Filed Under: News

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

September 18, 2020

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who, along with Justice Stephen Breyer, had called for the U.S. Supreme Court to consider anew the constitutionality of the death penalty, passed away due to complications with cancer. Prior to her service on the U.S. Supreme Court, as a lawyer with the ACLU, Justice Ginsburg authored an amicus brief in… Read More →

Filed Under: News

Willie Palmer No Longer Under Death Sentence

August 25, 2020

Today, Willie Palmer is no longer under a death sentence, after nearly 25 years on death row, by agreement between the parties, for another sentencing trial in Burke County. He will no longer face the death penalty. The Resource Center represented Mr. Palmer in his state post-conviction proceedings following his first trial in 1997, and… Read More →

Filed Under: News

Georgia Death Penalty Study Finds Stark Racial Disparities

August 3, 2020

A new study of Georgia’s death penalty system finds even more racial disparities in the imposition of the ultimate punishment. Building on the well-known Baldus Study, which showed that people who had killed white victims were four times more likely to receive the death penalty than people who had killed Black victims, researchers Scott Phillips… Read More →

Filed Under: News

Prosecutor John Johnson’s History of Misconduct

July 24, 2020

The Atlanta-Journal Constitution highlights the pattern of misconduct by Brunswick Judicial Circuit prosecutor John Johnson, including in the death penalty cases of former Georgia Resource Center clients Larry Jenkins, Larry Lee, and Jimmy Meders.

Filed Under: News

Murphy Davis’s Memoir Published

July 1, 2020

Longtime GRC partner Murphy Davis released her memoir Surely Goodness and Mercy, describing her decades-long struggle against cancer. Ms. Davis is a Presbyterian minister who, along with her husband Ed Loring, ran the Open Door Community in Atlanta (now based in Baltimore). As part of her ministry, Ms. Davis served dozens of people on Georgia’s… Read More →

Filed Under: News

Johnny Gates is Free

May 15, 2020

Johnny Gates, who served more than 26 years on death row and 43 years in prison, for a 1977 Muscogee County murder, was released from prison today. Mr. Gates always maintained his innocence for the crime. In March, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed the reversal of Mr. Gates’s conviction so that he could conduct DNA… Read More →

Filed Under: News

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