JACKSON, Ga. — Forty-four men and one woman are on death row here in the state of Georgia. Wednesday night, the state executed its third inmate this year.
Ray Jefferson Cromartie was sentenced to die for the 1994 shooting and killing of Richard Slysz, a store clerk in Thomasville, Georgia during a robbery.
Up until the moment of his execution, Cromartie's attorneys were fighting to halt it – arguing DNA evidence in the case could show he wasn’t the one to actually pull the trigger.
Anthoney Cromartie says his brother's previous attorneys didn't request DNA testing in the case, but should have. When his new attorneys stepped in, they did, but they lost every appeal for a new trial, and their requests to test the evidence now.
Cromartie's family was hoping the testing would help exonerate the 52-year-old.
"Years ago, number one priority, let's make sure he committed the crime, he pay the price for it, but if he didn't set him free," Anthoney Cromartie told 11Alive's Elwyn Lopez in an exclusive interview.
Cromartie's lawyers argue the testing could prove the man executed last night did not pull the trigger, killing Slysz.
So, why isn't the evidence tested now?
The state countered that the DNA evidence the defense was seeking couldn't prove his innocence, and a judge ruled last month that it was unlikely the testing would lead to a different verdict.
11Alive Legal Analyst Latonia Hines says that's because he was convicted of malice murder – which can be applied, even if you don’t physically murder the person, but were a party to the crime.
"You can be held to the same charges as the person who pulled the trigger," Hines said.
The getaway driver and an accomplice pleaded guilty to lesser charges, served prison time and have since been released.
The case raises questions about DNA evidence in other cases from decades ago – when testing wasn’t as sophisticated as it is now.
According to the Innocence Project, the first DNA exoneration took place in 1989. Since then, 367 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing. Sixty-one percent of them were African American. Twenty-one inmates were on death row.
Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 74 men and one woman have been executed here in Georgia. Under Georgia law, only three offenses are punishable by death: murder, rape and kidnapping.
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