Georgia Supreme Court Removes Obstacle for Death Row Executions Delayed by COVID Pandemic

Georgia high court scraps vaccine‑based pause on executions

ATLANTA — The Georgia Supreme Court has removed a pandemic-era barrier to executions, checking off a legal condition that must be met before ending the lives of certain inmates sentenced to death. The decision overturned a lower court ruling that had put executions on hold over access to COVID-19 vaccines. But at least one legal obstacle remains before executions can resume in those cases. In an order issued Tuesday, the high court ruled for state Attorney General Chris Carr, who had appealed a 2022 decision in Fulton County Superior Court after the Federal Defender Program, Inc. secured a pause in the execution of death row inmate Virgil Delano Presnell, Jr. The Fulton decision that was reversed on Tuesday involved access to COVID-19 vaccines. The Fulton judge had halted executions until vaccines became “readily available.” The opponents of executions argued that this condition had not been met because COVID-19 vaccines were not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for children under six months old. However, the high court’s opinion, authored by Justice Carla Wong McMillian, said the lack of approval for babies was not relevant for convicts sentenced to death and that vaccines are now widely available. “Given that the State produced undisputed evidence that the supply of the COVID-19 vaccine is adequate for all members of the public to obtain the vaccine and that no legal impediment exists for all members of the public to be vaccinated, if deemed medically appropriate, the trial court erred in concluding that the COVID-19 vaccine was not ‘readily available’ to all members of the public,” the opinion said. One obstacle to executions remains. A footnote in the opinion said a separate condition involving inmate visitation has not yet been litigated.

Georgia Supreme Court removes COVID-19 execution barrier

The availability of COVID-19 vaccines for babies played a key role in a Georgia Supreme Court decision involving death row inmates. Scott Olson/Getty ImagesThe Georgia Supreme Court ended an agreement preventing the execution of nine death row inmates, even though the Food and Drug Administration hasn’t approved the COVID-19 vaccine for children under the age of 6 months. Here’s how those two things are related. According to the court, the 2021 …

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