BREAKING: Robery Wayne Holsey Pronounced Dead Tonight At 10:51 p.m. @GA_Corrections

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Per the GA Departmet of Corrections, after more than 3 1/2 hours, the execution of Robert Wayne Holsey has begun. He was convicted of killing a Baldwin County Sheriff’s Deputy in 1995.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta said that even though Robert Wayne Holsey’s trial lawyers did not do a competent job, their deficient performance did not prejudice the outcome of the trial. Holsey sits on Georgia’s death row for fatally shooting Baldwin County Deputy Will Robinson after an armed robbery of a convenience store in December 1995.

Holsey’s appellate lawyers noted that his lead trial lawyer, Andrew Prince, drank a quart of vodka every night of Holsey’s trial because he was about to be sued and prosecuted for stealing client funds. During Holsey’s appeal, Prince testified that he “probably shouldn’t have been allowed to represent anybody” because of his condition.

Also, shortly before trial Price was arrested for disorderly conduct and accused of threatening to shoot three black neighbors to whom he was shouting racial slurs. Price was white and his capital client defendant black. They say Price also drank a quart of vodka every night of the trial.

Judge Ed Carnes, writing the majority opinion, said the abundant aggravating factors — such as the fact Holsey killed a deputy to avoid arrest and had a prior armed robbery conviction — outweighed any additional mitigation evidence Holsey’s lawyers could have presented to the jury had they been doing their job.

Judge J.L. Edmondson concurred with the decision, but he indicated it was a close call as to whether the poor performance of Holsey’s lawyers prejudiced the outcome of the trial.

In dissent, Judge Rosemary Barkett said the jury never learned that Holsey was subjected to abuse so severe, frequent and notorious that his neighbors called his childhood home “the torture chamber.” Holsey’s mother beat him with an extension cord, shoes and a broom and would hold his head under the bathtub faucet, Barkett wrote, also citing testimony that the house was infested with roaches and reeked of urine and rotting food.

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