Rethinking capital punishment

Capital Punishment in Georgia: A History 

“Rethinking Capital Punishment” examines one of the most severe forms of punishment—one that is still carried out in the state of Georgia. According to Terrica Ganzy, executive director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, the modern death penalty can trace its roots to extrajudicial racial violence: “The death penalty is not a sharp break from the era of racial terror. It is a continuation of it. A more sanitized form of the same control that was once exerted through lynching.” 

Ganzy spoke about the history of enslavement in the US and how, as she argues, the 13th Amendment, which was designed to abolish the institution of slavery, instead criminalized the behavior of formerly enslaved individuals. The amendment created a loophole to continue “the racialized subjugation of Black people.” Any gains made during the Reconstruction period were crushed by terroristic groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.  

From the late 1800s to 1968, more than 4,000 people were killed in lynch mobs—many of those lynchings taking place in the South. Ganzy shared that many of the victims were Black, with Georgia being the second in the US for lynchings. She explains that in the 1920s, the US began to replace lynchings with executions, and as lynchings decreased in frequency, executions rose in frequency. Ganzy said that executions provided an appearance of due process, which was more palatable in the press. However, these executions followed sham trials.  

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ended Jim Crow, but they did not prevent Blacks from being subjugated. During this time, mass incarceration emerged as a new form of control, which was reinforced by the “tough on crime” laws of the 1980s and 1990s. Georgia played an outside role in shaping how the death penalty works in America, in cases such as Furman v. Georgia (arbitrary and inconsistent imposition of the death penalty violates the 8th and 14th Amendments); Gregg v. Georgia (reaffirming the Court’s acceptance of the use of the death penalty); and McCluskey v. Kemp (while the death penalty might disproportionally affect certain groups, it does not violate the 14th Amendment unless intentional racial bias can be proven). Ganzy argues that racial discrimination persists in our capital punishment system, with Black individuals more likely to be sentenced to death than whites, and death sentences are more common in the states and counties where lynching was a common occurrence. The pattern remains, but they can be changed: “We are not powerless. We can expose these truths; we can push for fairness and jurisdiction. We can advocate for the repeal of the death penalty, and we can insist on dignity over death,” says Ganzy. 

Defending Capital Cases: An Attorney’s Role 

When it comes to sentencing in a criminal case, Georgia is unique in that juries are asked to decide whether the defendant should be sentenced to parole, life without parole, or the death penalty. Any dissonance in the case will lead to an automatic appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court, the state’s highest court, for a review of court documents or any errors that may have occurred during litigation. If an appeal is unsuccessful, the defendant can seek post-conviction relief through such legal vehicles as a motion for a new trial, motion for a modified sentence, or a habeas corpus petition. If a Georgia defendant has exhausted their federal habeas appeals, they would seek clemency through the five-member Board of Pardons and Paroles.   

The state post-conviction process provides an opportunity for a person to raise issues that were not raised in the trial court and to investigate aspects of the case that may not have previously been investigated. The defendant may work with an investigator, a mitigation specialist (who researches the client’s life history and humanity), and a capital defense attorney. The American Bar Association (ABA) publishes guidelines on the appointment and performance of counsel in capital cases; however, there are some key differences between an attorney’s role during the trial and in post-conviction.  

During the early stages of a trial, there can be a lot of public and media attention on a crime, including calls for the death penalty. This can impact the litigation process and the willingness of people to help with the case. During post-conviction work, the passage of time can be an advantage. Intensity settles, witnesses may evolve, and jurors from the trial court may be willing to share their mindsets. However, challenging jurisdictions can continue to be an issue. This is why so many criminal defense attorneys take a client-centered approach to advocacy.   

“A client-centered approach is a holistic approach to our clients’ needs,” says Anna Arceneaux, executive director of the Georgia Resource Center. “It’s unique to our work, compared to other criminal defense attorneys. Not manylawyers have clients for more than 20 years. We’re going to have a lot of ups and downs through our clients’ lives, as anyone would, and we’ll be there for them through that.”  

“We learn about their lives and about the ups and downs they’ve had,” said Patrick Mulvaney, director of Capital Litigation with the Southern Center for Human Rights. “We get to know our clients and see that they are more than the worst 15 minutes of their life. We get to see what they’re doing and how they’ve grown since their incarceration. If a state is going to put a person to death, then the state should know who that person is.”   

“Our clients manage life in prison the best they can, and that is a very, very difficult thing to do. But our clients are extremely resilient and can manage in circumstances that would be challenging for most of us. So, we try to encourage and support them along that journey,” says Arceneaux.  

Criminal defense attorneys and capital defense attorneys emphasize open and honest communication with their clients. Attorneys also consider it part of their job to expose the ties between racism, socioeconomic differences, and the US death penalty system. They focus on the historical context and relevant circumstances and how these can impact their clients’ risk of execution.  

“What you often see with [death penalty cases] is this dehumanizing process. If the client can be presented as a monster or something less than human, then maybe it’s okay to kill them. I think it’s important for us to push back—stand up for legitimacy, and for the dignity of our clients.” 

Recent Developments in Georgia Executions 

Georgia’s relationship with the death penalty can help illustrate trends in execution methods across the country. Within the past decade, many criminal attorneys and legislators were under the impression that the death penalty was on the way out. Capital sentences were down, and the US Supreme Court had established a framework for assessing the constitutionality of various aspects of the death penalty. However, this trend has recently reversed itself. There were 25 executions in the US in 2024. As of October 2025, there were 34 executions for the year, with another nine scheduled before year end. 

“There’s a push to expand the scopes of crimes that are punishable by death,” says Bo King, chief of the Capital Habeas Unit for the Fourth Circuit. “There’s a push to revisit some of the precedents that seemed to herald the end of the death penalty.” As an example, in September, the attorneys general for 15 states wrote a letter to the US Department of Justice asking to overrule Kennedy v. Louisiana, which could open the door to the death penalty for non-homicide crimes.  

Questions surrounding the constitutionality of capital cases often involve the method of execution. For a long time, Georgia has had a three-drug method of execution: the first drug renders the individual unconscious, the second drug is a paralytic, and the third drug stops the individual’s heart. Challenges to the three-drug protocol involve the effectiveness of the drugs as well as the qualifications of the person delivering the injections. There is also a question of whether manufacturers want to be known for producing these lethal drugs. Georgia became a model for other states when it adopted the Lethal Injection Secrecy Act, which renders the identity of the person who administers lethal injections, as well as the companies that produce and supply the drugs, a state secret. Other states have adopted similar secrecy statutes. 

“Many of those same states that have adopted secrecy statutes, as Georgia has, have been [more readily] able to acquire lethal injection drugs,” says King. “What is the result? A huge spike in executions.”  

But a spike in executions doesn’t equate to a spike in the humanity of execution methods.  

“There is no way to make execution abstract, to make it anything other than a physical and violent act. There is no way to [carry out the death penalty] that does not inflict tremendous damage on a body or tremendous damage on anyone who witnesses it. The physical act of ending another person’s life, of doing this damage, and causing pain – that’s the truth of it.” 

Where Do We Go from Here: Implications and Advocacy  

What does it cost to execute an individual? There’s the financial cost. According to Nicole Wiesen, communications director with the Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, it costs approximately $28,000 to execute someone, and that’s after about $500,000 to house someone on death row and $1.2 million worth of litigation costs over a 15- to 20-year period. There are also the non-financial costs: the decades of stress and trauma experienced by the victim’s family, the defendant, and the defendant’s loved ones.  

“Being on death row is... it’s like you can’t breathe,” says Rev. Billy Neal Moore, who was paroled after being on death row for more than 17 years. “I am considered the worst person in the state of Georgia, that the only thing you can do for me is kill me.” 

Anti-death-penalty advocates and policymakers are taking a close look at the laws that enable the state-sanctioned taking of a life. They are attempting to educate the public about the implications of capital punishment.  

“If you’re a defense lawyer, remember that [your client] is a human being. Treat them like that. Treat them with compassion and caring,” says Karlan Holik, an advocate with the Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. 

“People have asked me, ‘How can you work against the death penalty?’ But my response is, ‘How can you be part of a state that sanctions murder?’ There’s no difference to me between pro-life and the reverse… I don’t want that right to take somebody else’s life. Every life is important,” says Wiesen.   

Georgia recently passed HB123, which provides for pretrial proceedings in capital offense cases where the death penalty is sought when the accused has an intellectual disability. However, advocates argue that there is much more work to be done on the state level.  

“Voting is going to be your best weapon,” says Wiesen. “It’s a way to chip away at the death penalty—to make Georgia a moratorium state or to abolish the death penalty completely. 

“It is a heavy lift, but it is a lift that we all need, so that Georgia can follow suit to the other states that have chosen life without parole versus execution.”  

“We need to continue our fight against the death penalty,” says Moore. “It’s not going to go away on its own. It’s going to take people like you.”