The lawyer for convicted killer Ray Cromartie ripped the state of Georgia for executing his client last night.
Cromartie, 52, died by lethal injection on Georgia’s death row on Wednesday, Nov. 13. He was pronounced dead at 10:59 p.m. at the state prison in Jackson, Georgia, WSB-TV reports.
Cromartie was sentenced to death in the 1994 murder of store clerk Richard Slysz during an armed robbery of a convenience store in Thomasville, Ga.
Cromartie’s attorney, Shawn Nolan, said the state ignored repeated requests for DNA testing that would have proven Cromartie’s innocence.
“It is so sad and frankly outrageous that the state of Georgia executed Ray Cromartie tonight after repeatedly denying his requests for DNA testing that would have proven he did not kill Richard Slysz,” Nolan said in a statement via WSB-TV. “In this day and age, where DNA testing is routine, it is shocking that Georgia decided to end this man’s life without allowing us, his attorneys, access to the materials to do these simple tests.”
Cromartie’s execution didn’t attract the same worldwide media attention as Rodney Reed, the Texas inmate who is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Nov. 20 for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites, 19.
Reed (pictured) was convicted based on his DNA linked to sperm found inside the victim. But he claimed he had consensual sex with Stites the day before she was killed.
Reed’s lawyers are trying to overturn his conviction based on the testimony of seven new witnesses who point the finger at Stite’s then-fiancé, Jimmy Fennell, a former police officer who was later convicted and sentenced to prison for the rape of another woman.
Reed’s attorneys says he had a secret affair with Stites, a white woman who was on her way to work at a convenience store the morning she was raped and murdered.
