August 15 GEORGIA: Maid pardoned 60 years after execution The only woman ever executed in Georgia's electric chair is being granted a posthumous pardon, 60 years after the black maid was put to death for killing a white man she claimed held her in slavery and threatened her life. The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has decided to pardon Lena Baker and plans to present a proclamation to her descendants at its August 30 meeting in Atlanta, board spokeswoman Scheree Lipscomb said Monday. The board did not find Baker innocent of the crime, Lipscomb said. Members instead found the decision to deny her clemency in 1945 "was a grievous error, as this case called out for mercy," Lipscomb said. Baker was sentenced to die following a 1-day trial before an all-white, all-male jury in Georgia. "I believe she's somewhere around God's throne and can look down and smile," said Baker's grandnephew, Roosevelt Curry, who has led the family's effort to clear her name. John Cole Vodicka, director of the Georgia-based Prison & Jail Project, a prison-advocacy group that assisted Baker's descendants with the pardon request, said he was elated with the decision. "Although in some ways it's 60 years too late, it's gratifying to see that this blatant instance of injustice has finally been recognized for what it was -- a legal lynching," Vodicka said. During her 1-day trial, Baker testified that E.B. Knight, a man she had been hired to care for, held her against her will in a grist mill and threatened to shoot her if she tried to leave. She said she grabbed Knight's gun and shot him when he raised a metal bar to strike her. After Baker's execution in 1945, Baker's body was buried in an unmarked grave behind a small church where she had been a choir member. In the late 1990s, the congregation marked the grave with a cement slab. Baker supporters have been gathering at her grave every year since 2001 to mark the date of her execution, and Curry, along with a few dozen surviving family members, hosted a Mother's Day ceremony at the graveside in 2003, the same year he requested the pardon. State records indicate that 20 women have been executed in Georgia, 19 by hanging and Baker by electrocution. One woman sits on Georgia's death row today. (source: Associated Press) NORTH CAROLINA: Closing arguments held in trial of N.C. man charged with murder A man accused of killing 2 people outside a North Carolina State University football game had time to decide to kill the men, meaning he's guilty of 1st-degree murder, a prosecutor said in closing arguments Monday. But attorneys for Timothy Johnson, 23, said their client was guilty only of voluntary manslaughter. Johnson is charged with 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in the death of Chicago businessman Kevin McCann and Camp Lejeune Marine Brett Harman who were killed at a tailgating party outside NCSU's football season opener on Labor Day weekend in 2004. Wake County Assistant District Attorney Jeff Cruden told the jury that Harman and McCann did nothing to cause their own deaths. Instead, he argued that Johnson shot and killed the 2 men, using malice, premeditation and deliberation, all factors in 1st-degree murder. "When he knew that his brother was down on the ground and he decided to pull that gun, he deliberated," Cruden said. "If you can think about it, you deliberated." Cruden also rebutted the defense's theory that Johnson had a diminished capacity from drinking, which kept him from being able to form the specific intent to kill. "This is a guy so wasted and so tore up that he fired 2 shots and killed 2 people," he said. "That's a pretty good kill ratio. He's batting a thousand." But defense attorneys said that instead of murder, the case involves voluntary manslaughter. The victims, they said, were drinking and eager to fight. "Those men - as fine as my boys, maybe better - contributed to what happened out there that day," Cheshire said. "They are not blameless." Johnson has been portrayed as a convicted felon, an admitted drug dealer and alcoholic. Harman was a Marine headed to Iraq. McCann, his lifelong friend, was a Chicago businessman. "I also ask you not to convict him because of sympathy and emotion," Cheshire said. "That is not what your job is to do. The judge will tell you that's not your job." Johnson's younger brother, Tony, also is charged with murder and is scheduled to be tried in October. During the trial, Timothy Johnson testified that he never meant to kill anyone. Testimony ended Thursday with mental-health experts testified about Johnson's state of mind when he fired the shots. The jury will consider 1st-degree murder, 2nd-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter or not guilty for each killing. If convicted of 1st-degree murder, the jury would then have to decide whether to sentence Johnson to life in prison or death. (source: Associated Press)
