ATLANTA – An execution scheduled for Thursday would be the sixth in Georgia this year. That would be the most executions the state has carried out in a calendar year since the death penalty was reinstated four decades ago.
John Wayne Conner is scheduled to die at the state prison in Jackson. He was convicted of beating his friend J.T. White to death 34 years ago during an argument after a night of drinking and marijuana use. Conner is now 60.
Georgia has executed five people in a calendar year twice — last year and in 1987 — since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
There have been a total of 14 executions nationwide this year, six in Texas, five in Georgia and one each in Alabama, Florida and Missouri.
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