PUBLIC AI Index: AMR 51/105/2008

17 September 2008

Further information on UA 254/08 (AMR 51/102/2008, 12 September 2008) – Death penalty/Legal concern

USA (Georgia) Jack E. Alderman (m), white, aged 56

Jack Alderman was executed in Georgia on the 16 September. He was sentenced to death in June 1975 for the murder of his wife, Barbara Jean Alderman, in 1974. He had been on death row for more than 30 years.

On 15 September, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Melvin Westmoreland issued a stay of execution, ordering that Jack Alderman’s death sentence not be carried out until he had had a “meaningful” clemency hearing from the state Board of Pardons and Paroles (BPP). Prior to this, the BPP had refused to reconsider Jack Alderman’s case after denying him clemency in October 2007. In June 2008, his lawyers asked the BPP to hold a clemency hearing, but it had refused.

Following Judge Westmoreland’s ruling, the BPPagreed to hold a hearing on 16 September, after which it denied clemency. Jack Alderman was put to death by lethal injection shortly after 7pm local time. The execution took about 14 minutes.

There have been 21 executions in the USA this year, three of them in Georgia. Since 1977, when the USA resumed executions, 1,120 men and women have been put to death, 43 of them in Georgia.

No further action by the UA network is requested. Many thanks to all who sent appeals.