JACKSON, Ga. — Oct. 30 was the day Ray Jefferson Cromartie was originally set to be executed. That morning, Georgia's Supreme Court issued a temporary stay of execution - all due to a technicality.
"It had to all do about the legal filing, and that legal filing is all about a technicality. You can't file an order for execution until such time as all appeals are done," 11Alive Legal Analyst Latonia Hines said.
The appeal - a push from Cromartie's attorney for DNA testing. They claim DNA testing on some of the evidence in the case could prove the death row inmate didn't shoot and kill store clerk Richard Slysz in Thomasville, Georgia in 1994.
Georgia's supreme court declined to hear about it.
Anthoney Cromartie, Ray Cromartie's brother, said the back-and-forth in the case has been hard on his family but adds that hearing about the new execution date - just two days after the stay - felt rushed to him.
“And everything has changed back. They gave him a new death date, you know what I’m saying," he said. "So, to me, it’s like no one really ever looked at it, it’s like, just do the paperwork, it was a formality, we know what it was and get it over with."
Anthoney Cromartie said he hopes his brother is granted another stay.
"Right now, my family just taking it in stride, one day at a time seeing what happens, hope that he gets another stay, but this time that we go back to court," he added.
Hines said it seems as though every legal avenue has already been explored at this time.
"It looks like, right now, that there are no other legal roadblocks, but you never know what could happen," she said.
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