Georgia Wastes No Time in Starting to Kill its Prisoners Again

A Georgia court has scheduled the execution of a convicted killer after the U.S. Supreme Court last week upheld Kentucky's lethal injection protocol, ending a de facto national moratorium on the death penalty. William Earl Lynd, who was convicted of the 1988 murder of his girlfriend, is scheduled to be executed during on May 6, according to Wednesday media reports. If the execution takes place as scheduled, it will be the first execution since the Supreme Court's ruling. Reuters has more. AP has additional coverage.

In September 2007, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Baze v. Rees, allowing it to consider whether the three-drug lethal injection cocktail used in most states violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. This led to an effective moratorium on the death penalty in the United States as many federal courts, state courts, and state governors put executions on hold pending the high court's ruling. Several other U.S. states have already announced that they will resume executions by lethal injection. The Georgia Supreme court had previously stayed the execution of another condemned inmate while Baze v. Rees was pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.