There's a last plea for mercy from a Georgia man set to be executed this week.
Scotty Morrow was sent to death row for killing two women in Gwinnett County nearly 25 years ago. The State Board of Pardons and Paroles was scheduled to meet Wednesday to consider clemency for the convicted murderer.
In a strange twist, the prosecutor just gave closing arguments in the only other capital murder case she’s ever tried - the death penalty case for Tiffany Moss.
Assistant District Attorney Lisa Jones said both cases - Morrow's case and the Moss trial - have come full circle.
The verdict was delivered in the Moss trial just 48 hours before Morrow will be executed. They are the the only two death penalty cases Jones has ever tried, and she got the ultimate punishment in both.
ADA Lisa Jones explained she supports the death penalty - when the case calls for it.
"Every case is not a death penalty case, every murder that comes in to our offices, or the offices where I worked, are not death penalty cases," she said. "But when you see a case - if you've done this long enough - you know what cases those are."
The horrific testimony in the Tiffany Moss case - in which the defendant was convicted of murder for starving her 10-year-old stepdaughter Emani to death then burning her body - convinced a jury to sentence her to death.
Jones said it was immediately clear the prosecution would ask for the death penalty. She said the decision was made just as fast for Morrow in 1994.
"It was another horrific case," Jones said. "It was the murder of two women, he shot a third woman, and it was all done in front of a 5-year-old child who watched his own mother being murdered. And then his actions afterwards is what resulted in him getting the death penalty."
Jones said she plans to attend his execution Thursday and said she will attend the execution of Moss.
"If I am going to stand in front of a jury who represents that community to sentence a defendant to death, that's a very difficult decision and I recognize that, that I should be willing to follow my job through, to follow that case from beginning to end and that includes the execution," Jones added. "If I am going to ask someone to impose the death penalty, I need to have the wherewithal to face it."
Morrow will be executed at the Jackson State Prison Thursday night.
THE TIFFANY MOSS TRIAL |