By Rhonda Cook
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CHATHAM COUNTY, Ga. — Condemned killer Jack Alderman could be executed by lethal injection in Georgia later this month under a warrant signed Wednesday, even though several states have recently opted to hold off on executions until the U.S. Supreme Court decides if that method is unconstitutional.
According to the warrant signed by Chatham County Judge Michael Karpf, Alderman, convicted of the 1974 murder of his wife, can be executed between noon Oct. 19 and noon Oct. 26. The Georgia Department of Corrections is responsible for choosing a specific time for the execution at its prison near Jackson, but one had not been set late Wednesday.
Alderman’s execution was scheduled even though more than a dozen states are under moratoriums, either self-imposed or ordered by a court, because of questions about the three-drug method of lethal injection used in 37 states, including Georgia.
Courts in several states have considered the lethal injection question and have reached different conclusions. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a Kentucky case that asks whether lethal injection violates the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment. Lawyers for the defendant in that case argued that lethal injection causes excruciating pain.
“Clearly, the [U.S.] Supreme Court has said ‘We are troubled by the constitutionality of current lethal injection procedures and we’re going to hear the merits,’ ” said Tom Dunn, one of Alderman’s attorneys. Alderman’s lawyers said they will appeal to stop his execution because of the method the state uses.
Chatham County Chief Assistant District Attorney David Lock said his office sought the warrant because “the courts in Georgia have not stayed any execution” because of the lethal injection issue.
Alderman was convicted of killing his 20-year-old wife, Barbara Jean, on Sept. 21, 1974, in Garden City just outside of Savannah. She was bludgeoned, strangled and held underwater in a bathtub. Alderman and a co-defendant, who has since been paroled, then loaded her body into the trunk of a car and left the car partially submerged in a creek in Effingham County.
On Monday, Alderman lost his last appeal of his conviction and sentence when the U.S. Supreme Court said it would not hear his claim that his lawyers were inadequate in his trial. That prompted the Chatham County district attorney’s office to seek a death warrant. Though he has exhausted his appeals on his conviction, Alderman can still appeal based on the legal injection issue.
His lawyers will most likely point out that Alderman has filed a lawsuit challenging lethal injection similar to cases that stopped executions in other states. Those lawsuits argue that the sedative that is the first of three drugs administered is not sufficient and that the condemned experiences excruciating pain when the second drug, a paralytic, and third drug, potassium chloride, are administered.
Alderman’s lawyers also are likely to note that the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the Kentucky lethal injection lawsuit that makes claims identical to those in Alderman’s lawsuit, which is pending before U.S. District Court Judge Beverly Martin.
Lethal injection opponents have questioned the use of three drugs when only one is used to euthanize animals. Georgia administers 2 grams of sodium pentothal as a sedative, pancuronium bromide to paralyze the inmate and potassium chloride to stop the heart. Opponents say the condemned, if not adequately anesthetized, could experience pain when the second and third drugs are administered but they cannot relay that information because they are paralyzed. Yet execution witnesses see a peaceful death.
Alderman’s death warrant was sought just a day after a court in Texas stayed an execution that was set for Thursday in light of the high court’s decision to look at lethal injection. Last week, the Supreme Court stopped another scheduled execution in Texas and Alabama voluntarily adopted a moratorium.
Another Alderman attorney, Michael Seim of New York, said lawyers would “do everything we can to prevent his execution by unconstitutional means. The Supreme Court has said they are reviewing the very protocols they intend to use on our client in two weeks. ... I can’t believe that the state of Georgia is going forward with an execution when even the state of Texas, which has more executions than any state, has a moratorium. Rather than wait for the Supreme Court, they have tried to slip this one through the back door and execute him by unconstitutional means.”
Elisabeth Semel, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and former head of the American Bar Association’s death penalty representation project, said though the justices agreed to hear a lethal injection challenge, it is impossible to predict what the justices would do with regard to cases like Alderman’s.
But Semel questioned whether the Georgia attorney general’s office is testing the high court.
“What is to be gained by pushing this at this juncture? The judicious thing for everybody in every state is to wait and see what the Supreme Court decides and go from there,” Semel said.
Staff writer Bill Rankin contributed to this article.
Copyright 2007 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution