Hours before execution, inmate seeks relief through Georgia abuse survivor law

Stacey Ian Humphreys, convicted in the 2003 strangling and shooting deaths of two Powder Springs real estate agents, asked a Georgia judge on Tuesday to convert his death sentence using a law passed last year to help domestic abuse survivors who committed crimes against their abusers. Humphreys was on parole for theft when he killed Cyndi Williams and Lori Brown, then stole their identities and drained more than $3,000 from their accounts. His petition cites documented childhood abuse, including beatings, burns, a skull fracture at age three, and sexual abuse.

The state's Senior Assistant Attorney General countered that the law was written for people who defended themselves against violence committed by the person they harmed, not for defendants seeking new mitigating evidence decades after conviction. She noted the law's first beneficiary, Nicole Boynton, was released after 23 years for killing the boyfriend who abused her, a very different fact pattern than Humphreys stealing dead women's credit cards.

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency after a hearing missing one recused member. The case now sits with a Cobb County judge as Humphreys' Wednesday execution approaches, which would make him the 55th person Georgia has put to death since executions resumed in 1976, following a more than two-year pause.

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