Because Texas has executed so many more murderers than any other state in the modern era, it really should have the “honor” of carrying out any landmark execution. But, as this CNN article details, Georgia was the state to conduct a landmark execution tonight. The article is headlined “Georgia inmate is the 1,500th person executed in the US since the death penalty was reinstated,” and here are excerpts:
A Georgia inmate convicted in the killing of man who gave him a ride in 1997 died by lethal injection Thursday, the state’s Department of Corrections said. Marion Wilson Jr. is the 1,500th person to be executed in the United States since the return of the death penalty in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
His execution was carried at 9:52 p.m. ET at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Georgia after the US Supreme Court denied a stay of execution.
Wilson was sentenced to death in 1997 for the murder of Donovan Corey Parks in southeast Atlanta. Parks was found dead on a residential street after he gave Wilson and another man a ride from a Walmart store. Parks had gone to the store to buy cat food and accepted to give them a ride when they approached him in the parking lot, authorities said.