McDade Outraged With State’s Commutation Decision

From the Douglas County Sentinel:

‘Slap in face’

D.A., Sheriff outraged at execution decision

By Winston Jones
Staff Writer

Douglas County District Attorney David McDade and Sheriff Phil Miller are disappointed in the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles decision Thursday that stopped the scheduled 7 p.m. execution of Samuel David Crowe.

The board announced its vote about 4:45 p.m. Thursday to commute Crowe’s sentence to life without parole. The announcement came just a little over two hours before Crowe was due to die by lethal injection at the Jackson state prison.

Crowe, 47, had already eaten what was to be his last meal and was on suicide watch in the holding cell next to the death chamber.

Since 1995, the board has heard 24 appeals for commutation, and this was the third sentence commuted. The Georgia Supreme Court earlier in the day had turned down Crowe’s request for a stay of execution and an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was pending.

“I was thoroughly disgusted and disappointed in the decision,” McDade said Friday morning; “not for me, but for the victim’s family. His wife and daughter had waited 20 years for justice, and it was snatched away from them at the last minute by the board’s decision.”

McDade said he and Miller had testified earlier before the Pardons and Paroles Board and were on their way to Jackson to witness the execution when they received notification of the decision.

McDade said he had the duty to call the victim’s widow in Birmingham and daughter in Massachusetts to notify them.

“They were devastated,” he said. “The only cruel and unusual thing about the death penalty in this case is to the victim’s family and how they were denied justice. This is a case where Mr. Crowe’s guilt had been unequivocally established over 20 years. He confessed and pled guilty to murder. The victim’s family was entitled to justice, not this charade.”

Miller, who supervised the Sheriff’s Office Detective Division when the March 2, 1988, murder was committed, said Friday he was also upset over the board’s decision. He called the crime a “horrible, terrible murder.”

Miller said he was the officer who arrested Crowe at Crowe’s Fairburn Road home the morning after the murder.

“Capt. Eddie Price lived diagonally across the road from Crowe’s house,” Miller said. “We sat in his (Price’s) yard and waited until he (Crowe) came home. I told him he was under arrest and advised him of his rights. He admitted to the murder and told me where the gun was. He took me upstairs and showed me the gun.”

Miller said Sheriff Earl Lee arrived a few minutes later with a search warrant and authorities seized the gun, paint cans and other evidence from Crowe’s Pontiac.

“I represent the people of Douglas County,” Miller said. “The jury spoke and the courts said we did what should have been done. For the parole board to set aside what we did and what the courts did and commute his sentence, I think it’s a slap in the face to all people involved in the case.”

Crowe, 27 at the time he committed the crime, went to Wickes Lumber Co. as manager Joseph Pala was closing the store. Crowe was a former Wickes employee and associate of Pala’s. Crowe admitted to shooting Pala in the back with a .44-caliber handgun, then beating him on the head with a paint can and a crowbar. He took about $1,100 in the robbery.

At the Thursday Pardons and Paroles Board hearing, Crowe’s attorney, Ann Fort, said Crowe had stopped using cocaine and was in severe withdrawal the night of the murder. She said Crowe had no prior convictions before the murder and had been a model prisoner. She said he has always been very remorseful for his actions. Fort presented a box of testimonial letters to the board, including one from a retired corrections officer.

Crowe would have been the second Georgia man to be executed in 16 days. Georgia had the first execution in the nation, William Earl Lynd on May 6, after an April U.S. Supreme Court decision on lethal injection ended an unofficial moratorium. Mississippi executed Earl Wesley Berry, 49, on Wednesday.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report)