ATLANTA (CN) - A Georgia man who raped and killed a teenager decades ago became the first person executed in the United States since an Oklahoma inmate's botched execution in April.
Marcus Wellons was put to death Tuesday night after his bids for a stay of execution failed to sway a federal judge, the 11th Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court.
Wellons, 59, was convicted in 1993 for the 1989 rape and murder of a 15-year-old neighbor. He was sentenced to death for the murder and to life in prison for raping the teenager.
After the trial court denied Wellons' motion for a new trial, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed his convictions and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the case. Wellons' various habeas corpus petitions also failed, and the state scheduled him for execution at 7 p.m. on June 17, 2014.
Wellons' attorneys asked for a stay of execution last week, arguing that the compliance by Georgia officials with the state's lethal-injection secrecy law violated his constitutional rights.
The law, which went into effect last year, prevents the disclosure of identifying information about persons and entities participating in executions. The statute applies to manufacturers and distributors of lethal-injection drugs and to the identities and qualifications of the personnel administering executions. The state said it changed its lethal-injection protocol and adopted the secrecy statute in response to manufacturers' and distributors' reluctance to supply drugs used in carrying out death sentences.
Death-row inmates challenged secrecy laws in several states after the botched April execution of convicted murderer Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma raised concerns about lethal-injection protocols and the quality of drugs used in executions.
In his petition, Wellons argued that Georgia's refusal to disclose details about the drug to be used in his execution, most likely supplied by a compounding pharmacy, added an unacceptable risk of pain, suffering and harm in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Compounding pharmacies, which are regulated and overseen by the states rather than the Food and Drug Administration, have no way to test drugs' potency and purity, or to prevent their contamination, Wellons claimed. Ingredients that compounding pharmacies buy from foreign countries like India and China are also questionable and could cause significant pain during the execution, according to his petition.
Wellons also challenged the state's refusal to disclose the qualifications of the staff selected for his execution. Pentobarbital, the drug the state planned to use in Wellons' execution, could cause painful chemical burns if improperly injected, Wellons claimed.
The inmate did not object to the state's lethal-injection protocol. Rather, he argued that the officials' refusal to disclose the provenance of the drug and the training and expertise of the execution team prevented him from getting enough information to support a claim. He also said the refusal amounted to a violation of his due-process and First Amendment rights.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten dismissed Wellons' claims as "mere speculation," noting that the state is presumed to act in good faith in selecting the drug's manufacturer and the execution team.