Texas and Alabama Set Executions as Georgia Stays One

A Georgia judge late Tuesday night halted Stacey Humphreys' execution hours before the 7 p.m. EDT lethal injection near Jackson. Texas still plans to execute LeJames Norman on Wednesday at 6 p.m. CDT in Huntsville, and Alabama has set Jeffery Lee for Thursday. Norman was convicted in the 2005 shootings of Samuel Roberts, 24, Tiffani Peacock, 18, and Celso Lopez, 38, during a robbery in Edna after he and Ker'Sean Ramey sought cocaine and found none. Border Patrol arrested Norman re-entering from Mexico five months later. He pleaded guilty to capital murder. The Texas board rejected clemency Monday; the Court of Criminal Appeals denied a stay; his lawyers went to the U.S. Supreme Court. Norman also sued in August with John Rubio over Texas pentobarbital supply reliability; Attorney General Ken Paxton opposed lower-court interference. If carried out, this would be Texas' fifth execution in 2026 and the first since the state passed 600 in the modern era. Ramey is set for Sept. 23. Humphreys was convicted in the 2003 killings of Cyndi Williams, 33, and Lori Brown, 21, in Powder Springs. The stay followed a resentencing petition; the state is appealing and the judge said he may lift it. The parole board denied clemency Tuesday. Lee's method was switched from nitrogen hypoxia after courts blocked that plan. A judge had overridden the jury's 7-5 life vote under a system later abolished.