Execution set for 1974 killing

ATLANTA, Sept. 2 (UPI) -- A Georgia judge signed a death warrant Tuesday allowing the state to execute the man who has spent the longest on death row in the United States.

The order signed by Judge Michael Karpf of the Eastern Judicial Circuit allows Jack Alderman to be put to death by lethal injection between noon on Sept. 16 and noon Sept. 23, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Alderman was sentenced to death for drowning his wife in 1974 with the help of another man in order to collect $10,000 in life insurance.

Since then, Alderman won an appeal for a re-sentencing and again received a death sentence and lost other appeals. In May, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that lethal injection is not cruel and unusual punishment, the Georgia high court lifted its stay on Alderman's execution.

Karpf replaced the judge in Alderman's original trial, who has died along with the prosecutor and defense attorney. John Arthur Brown, who helped kill Barbara Alderman, also was sentenced to die but later was given a life sentence and eventual release on parole for testifying against Alderman. He killed himself in 2000 at the age of 51.