[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GEORGIA

[Rick Halperin]

June 20




GEORGIA----execution

Georgia carries out execution of condemned killer Marion Wilson


Marion Wilson was declared dead at 9:52 p.m. after being put to death tonight 
by lethal injection for a murder committed more than 2 decades ago.

The execution was carried out shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to 
hear the 42-year-old's final appeals.

Wilson’s lawyers had asked the high court to halt the execution, and the court 
waited about 2 hours after the scheduled 7 p.m. execution to issue its 
decision. The nation’s highest court often waits until well after that hour 
before deciding whether to intervene.

After hearing of the high court’s denial, Wilson’s 23-year-old daughter, 
Tykecia, screamed, “I want my daddy, I want my daddy back!” A man picked her up 
as she wailed, carried her to a car and drove away.

The Georgia Supreme Court refused to issue a stay of execution this afternoon, 
and the state Board of Pardons and Paroles declined to grant clemency to Wilson 
this morning.

Wilson was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Baldwin County — along 
with co-defendant Robert Butts — for the 1996 shooting death of an off-duty 
corrections officer. Donovan Parks, 24, wanted to become a counselor for 
inmates.

The parole board held a lengthy meeting Wednesday, hearing from members of 
Wilson and Parks’ family. Clemency hearings in Georgia are closed to the media. 
The board’s deliberations are also private.

Shortly after the parole board denied clemency, a Butts County Superior Court 
judge rejected Wilson’s latest petition. In a recent court filing, Wilson’s 
lawyers contended the district attorney who prosecuted the case made misleading 
arguments to Wilson’s jury. They also said Wilson was not eligible for the 
death penalty because he was not the person who shot and killed Parks.

But Judge Thomas Wilson dismissed the petition, saying one claim was raised too 
late and the other had already been decided in prior appeals. Marion Wilson’s 
lawyer are now expected to appeal the judge’s ruling to the Georgia Supreme 
Court.

This afternoon, the Georgia Supreme Court, by a pair of 7-1 votes with Justice 
Robert Benham dissenting, also dismissed Wilson’s appeal as well as his request 
for new DNA testing and a new trial.

On March 28, 1996, Wilson and Butts, who was executed last year, spotted Parks 
at a Milledgeville Walmart and asked for a ride while he was buying cat food.

Parks, who knew Butts from working with him at Burger King, had just come from 
Bible study. Wilson and Butts were members of the Folk Nation street gang. 
Minutes after Parks agreed to give them a lift, he was pulled from his car, 
shot in the head with a sawed-off shotgun, and left for dead in the road.

Wilson’s attorneys have argued there is no evidence Wilson was the trigger man, 
or that he knew Butts was going to shoot Parks. Wilson has said he thought 
Butts was likely going to rob Parks. The petition points out then-District 
Attorney Fred Bright had offered Wilson a sentence of life with the possibility 
of parole before his 1997 trial.

Wilson's attorneys have also said in filings that Bright, who died last year, 
took advantage of ambiguity in the evidence about which man pulled the trigger 
to accuse them both of it at their separate trials. Bright later said he 
believed Butts pulled the trigger.

The DA's office noted in filings this week that Georgia law doesn’t require a 
person to physically kill someone to be guilty of murder. Helping in a murder 
is enough.

Christopher Parks, who was 18 when his brother was murdered, wants Wilson to 
pay with his life as soon as possible.

“Donovan was someone who cared about people. He was someone who was trying to 
help someone who said they were stranded and needed a ride. Within 30 minutes, 
they took his life," Parks told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "Treated him 
like he was gum on the bottom of a shoe. Like he wasn’t worth anything.”

Outside the prison, a group a protesters gathered before 7 p.m. They’d driven 
from around the country to stand against the 1,500th American execution since 
1976.

“That person has a family too,” SueZann Bosler said of Wilson.

Bosler was the rare protester who had a family member murdered. Her father, 
Rev. Billy Bosler, was stabbed repeatedly in front of her on Dec. 22, 1986, by 
James Bernard Campbell in South Florida. Campbell also seriously wounded the 
daughter, 24 at the time.

Campbell ended up on death row, but the daughter eventually joined the 
successful fight to get him resentenced to life.

“My father told me 8 years before this happened, If someone ever murdered me, I 
would not want that person to get the death penalty,’” she said. “My dad taught 
me about forgiveness.”

Chrisopher Parks, for his part, disagrees with death penalty abolitionists, 
because he believes the only punishment appropriate for taking his brother’s 
life is death itself.

Wilson becomes the 2nd condemned inmate executed in Georgia this year and the 
74th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1983.

Wilson becomes the 10th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the 
USA and the 1,500th overall since the nation re-legalized the death penalty on 
July 2 1976; executions in the country began on January 17th, 1977.

(sources: Atlanta Journal-Constitution & Rick Halperin)