Clemency Denied, Ga. Inmate's Execution Set For Tuesday

ATLANTA, GA — The state Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied clemency to convicted murderer Keith Leroy Tharpe, marking him to become the second inmate executed in Georgia in 2017 on Tuesday.

Tharpe is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 7 p.m. at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.

The board, which, in Georgia, is the sole entity that may consider clemency in death penalty cases, met Monday. After reviewing his case, they denied appeals by his attorneys that Tharpe, 59, is a changed man who was addicted to crack cocaine and alcohol when he killed his sister-in-law and sexually assaulted his estranged wife in 1990.

Tharpe's team also argued that racial discrimination played a role in his conviction. A member of the jury was quoted using a racial slur in regard to Tharpe, the attorneys noted. (SIGN UP: Get Patch's Daily Newsletter and Real Time News Alerts. Or, if you have an iPhone, download the free Patch app.)

The Georgia Supreme Court has affirmed Tharpe’s convictions — on charges of murder and kidnapping with bodily harm — and his death sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court denied Tharpe’s request to appeal in June.

According to court documents, Tharpe, on Sept. 24, 1990, met up with his estranged wife and sister-in-law in middle Georgia's Jones County, using his vehicle to block them then getting out brandishing a shotgun. Apparently under the influence of drugs, Tharpe, who had repeatedly threatened his wife and her family with violence, shot his sister-in-law — 29-year-old Jacquelin Freeman — with the shotgun, rolled her into a ditch, reloaded and shot her again.

He then kidnapped his wife. After unsuccessfully trying to rent a motel room, he parked by the side of a road and raped her, court documents say. Afterward, he drove her to Macon, where she was supposed to get money from her credit union.

Instead, she called police.

On January 18, 1991, Tharpe was sentenced to death after a Jones County jury found him guilty of malice murder and two counts of kidnapping with bodily injury.

According to the state Department of Corrections, Tharpe has requested a last meal of three spicy chicken breasts, a roast beef sandwich with sauce, a fish sandwich, tater logs, onion rings, an apple pie and a vanilla milkshake.

Tharpe would become the second person executed by lethal injection in Georgia this year and the 71st person put to death in the state since the death penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976.

He would be the 48th inmate put to death since Georgia switched to lethal injection. There are presently 56 men under death sentence in Georgia.

Death row inmate J.W. "Boy" Ledford was the last prisoner executed in Georgia, on May 17.

Photo courtesy Georgia Department of Corrections