Georgia death row inmate gets one more day

JACKSON, Ga., April 28 (UPI) -- A technical legal matter pushed back Tuesday's planned execution of Georgia death row inmate William Mark Mize for at least one day, officials said.

The Georgia Supreme Court granted a stay of execution to give Oconee County Superior Court Judge Lawton Stephens an opportunity to rule on Mize's motion for a new trial. Stephens denied the motion later in the afternoon and now Mize is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 7 p.m. Wednesday, the Athens Banner-Herald reported.

Previously, the county judge had denied Mize's request for a hearing on the motion but had not ruled on the motion itself, the state's highest court said.

Now, however, Mize's attorneys intend to appeal Stephens' ruling to the Supreme Court, the newspaper said.

Mize, 52, was convicted for the 1994 shotgun slaying of Eddie Tucker in Oconee County. Authorities alleged Mize led a group related to the Ku Klux Klan, and killed Tucker because he and another member failed to follow Mize's orders to burn down a purported crack house in Athens.

His execution is to take place at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1973, 44 men have been executed in Georgia. There are 106 men and one woman on the state's death row.