The Mississippi Supreme Court on Thursday set a May 20 execution date for death row inmate Gerald James Holland.
Holland, 72, is the oldest
inmate on death row.
The Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel said it needed more time to review Holland’s case before filing a response to the attorney general’s April 19 motion for the setting of an execution date.
Nonetheless, the Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel said its limited review of the case raised some questions about the makeup of Holland’s trial jury in Adams County. He said it appeared their had been no jury registration in the county since 1956, which would have prevented some members of the community from being called to jury duty.
It also said there were questions about whether Holland suffers from brain dysfunction, which has not been thoroughly tested.
The Supreme Court, in Thursday’s order, says it saw no reason to delay setting an execution date.
The decision sets the stage for possible back-to-back executions in
Mississippi.
Earlier, the court set a May 19 execution date for Paul Everette Woodward.
Woodward, who’s now 62, was sentenced to death for the 1986 rape and shooting death of 24-year-old Rhonda Crane of Escatawpa.
Woodward’s attorney, C. Jackson Williams of Oxford, had told the court that Woodward intended to ask Gov. Haley Barbour for a pardon or commutation of sentence.
Barbour has never granted that request to any death row
inmate.
Williams could not immediately be reached Thursday. Corrections officials said the last back-to-back executions were in 1961 when the gas chamber was in use.
The last execution in the state was July 23, 2008, when Dale Leo Bishop was executed for his role in the 1998 slaying of Marcus Gentry of Fulton.
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