UPDATE: Presnell's execution postponed pending legal action

Chart Riggall, Marietta Daily Journal, Ga.
·1 min read
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May 18—The planned execution of convicted rapist and murderer Virgil Delano Presnell Jr., who was scheduled to be killed by lethal injection at 7 p.m. Tuesday, has been postponed.

Department of Corrections spokesperson Joan Heath said she had been advised by the office of Attorney General Chris Carr the execution would not proceed as planned Tuesday, pending legal action.

The warrant for Presnell's death is valid for seven days, Heath said, after which the state must obtain a new warrant.

Earlier Tuesday, Carr had appealed a Fulton County judge's decision to temporarily block the execution.

The appeal, which was released Tuesday afternoon, directed the matter to the Supreme Court of Georgia. The court had not issued a ruling as of press time.

Monday night, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Shermela Williams sided with Presnell's attorneys in finding the state had violated an agreement outlining when executions could resume after the COVID-19 pandemic, the Associated Press reported.

Williams' ruling came down hours after the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Presnell's clemency request for a stay of execution and a commutation of his sentence to life without parole.

Presnell was convicted in 1976 of abducting eight-year-old Lori Smith and her 10-year-old friend from a wooded path in Smyrna as they walked home from school. He drove them to another wooded area in Cobb, where he raped the older girl and drowned Smith in Nickajack Creek.

He has been on death row for 46 years.