This undated photo provided by the Georgia Department of Corrections shows Brandon Astor Jones in Georgia. Jones, a 72-year-old death row inmate, is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2016. He was convicted in the 1979 killing of a convenience store manager. Georgia Department of Corrections via AP
WASHINGTON, United States鈥擳he US state of Georgia is set to execute its oldest death-row prisoner Tuesday, just days before his 73rd birthday, in a case critics say is emblematic of capital punishment鈥檚 excesses.
Brandon Jones, scheduled to receive a lethal injection at a state prison in Jackson, has spent more than 36 years behind bars for the 1979 murder of a convenience store clerk.
Critics point to his case as an example of the 鈥渄ouble punishment鈥� faced by some death row prisoners鈥攕pending decades in solitary confinement with no prospects but death.
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer last year spoke out against 鈥渦nconscionably long delays that undermine the death penalty鈥檚 penological purpose.鈥�
Death penalty opponents note that many death row inmates were sentenced to death at a time when they lacked a satisfactory defense system and that if they were tried today, the outcome would be different.
鈥淛ones鈥檚 case raises questions of proportionality and discriminatory application of the death penalty,鈥� the Death Penalty Information Center said in a statement.
鈥淗e and his co-defendant Van Solomon鈥攂oth African American鈥攚ere sentenced to death鈥� for killing a white gas station store clerk during a robbery.
鈥淛ones denies shooting the clerk and prosecutors never determined who fired the fatal shot.鈥�
Solomon died on the electric chair in 1985.
A judge had ordered Jones to be resentenced because jurors had a Bible in the room during deliberations over his punishment.
During the decades he spent behind bars, Jones read a lot and become known for his writings on prison life and issues of race.
Jones, who would turn 73 on Valentine鈥檚 Day, declined to request a final meal ahead of his 7:00 pm (0100 GMT Wednesday) execution.
鈥淗e will be receiving the institutional tray consisting of chicken and rice, rutabagas, seasoned turnip greens, dry white beans, cornbread, bread pudding and fruit punch,鈥� the Department of Corrections said in a statement.
Currently, 76 men are on death row in Georgia, which suspended executions for several months in 2015 in response to a controversy over the drugs used in its lethal injections.
Jones would be the fifth person executed in the United States this year.
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