A SHORT HISTORY OF GEORGIA’S DEATH PENALTY FROM THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS:

“From 1735 to 1924 the legal method of execution in Georgia was hanging. The sheriff in the county or judicial circuit where the crime was committed carried out the execution.

“The last legal execution by hanging occurred on May 20, 1925. Gervis Bloodworth and Willie Jones (both white males) were hung in Columbus, Georgia for a murder that occurred in Taylor County. The execution was transferred to Columbus, in the same judicial circuit, because the condemned claimed that the hanging would be public (which was against the law) because spectators could stand on the roof of the drug store in Butler, Georgia and see the gallows. It is estimated that over 500 legal hangings occurred in Georgia between 1725 and 1925.

 “On August 16, 1924 an act of the Georgia General Assembly abolished death by hanging and substituted death by electrocution. Thereafter, executions were to be held at one place only, instead of the county or judicial circuit where the crime was committed.  “Of the 256 executions carried out at Reidsville, 255 were male and one was female (Lena Baker, a black female, was executed on March 5, 1945 for a murder in Randolph County). The oldest inmate executed was 72, the youngest was 16.

 “In 1964 the Supreme Court suspended all executions in the United States. The Georgia General Assembly passed a new death sentence law that went into effect on March 28, 1973. On July 2, 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the death penalty in Georgia as constitutional (Gregg v. Georgia).

“The first person executed after the reinstatement of the death penalty was John Eldon Smith. Smith, a white male, was executed on December 15, 1983 for a Bibb County murder.

“HB 1284, signed into law in 2000, changes the legal method of execution in Georgia to lethal injection effective May 1, 2000. Anyone who commits a capital crime after May 1, 2000, and receives a death sentence, will be executed by lethal injection. In addition, if either the Georgia or Supreme Courts declare death by electrocution unconstitutional, lethal injection will become the legal method of execution for all inmates under death sentence, regardless of the date of their crimes—and in fact, on October 5, 2001 the Georgia Supreme Court did rule executions by electrocution cruel and unusual punishment. HB1284 immediately took effect and the first execution by lethal injection occurred in October, 2001.”

 http://www.dcor.state.ga.us/pdf/TheDeathPenaltyinGeorgia.pdf