If it takes place as planned on Thursday, the execution of Jimmy Meders in Georgia will be for a crime for which the state no longer seeks, much less obtains, the death penalty, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Meders, 58, was sentenced to death in 1989 for the murder of a single victim during a convenience store armed robbery. Prosecutors said he shot clerk Don Johnson and grabbed cash and food stamps out of the register. Meders’ lawyers say there has been consistent movement away from death sentences being imposed for a murder like his. They also disclosed that jurors now say they would have sentenced him to life in prison without the chance of parole if that had been an option.
“This should never have been a death-penalty case,” said Meders’ lawyer, Mike Admirand of the Southern Center for Human Rights. “Had he been tried in 2020 and not 1989, Mr. Meders would not receive a death sentence.” Prosecutors are pressing ahead. On Wednesday in court, Senior Assistant Attorney General Sabrena Graham cited “overwhelming” evidence that Meders committed the murder and opposed his request for DNA testing. Meders is appealing to the Georgia Supreme Court. In the 1989 trial, jurors asked the judge whether they could recommend that he be sentenced to life in prison without parole. The Georgia legislature would not allow juries in death cases to sentence an offender to life without parole until 1993. Because it wasn’t an option in 1989, the judge overseeing Meders trial told jurors they couldn’t consider it.