Georgia executed its oldest death row inmate Tuesday, 72-year-old Brandon Astor Jones, after a last-minute appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court failed.
Jones was convicted in 1979 for the murder of a convenience store clerk during an armed robbery. A judge ordered a new sentencing hearing in 1989 and he was later resentenced to death in 1997.
The execution took place at 12:46 a.m. Wednesday, Georgia Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gwendolyn Hogan confirmed. Jones had been scheduled to be executed at 7 p.m., but his lawyers filed a last-minute appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Earlier Tuesday, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals voted 6-5 not to hear before a full court Jones' challenge of the state law that keeps secret the company that manufactures drugs used in lethal injections.
