Marcus Ray Johnson executed

ALBANY —After the U.S. Supreme Court denied an appeal by convicted killer Marcus Ray Johnson, he was executed at 10:11 p.m. Thursday, the Georgia Department of Corrections said.

Johnson declined a final prayer and refused to record a final statement.

With his plea for clemency denied by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole late Wednesday and his appeals to the Georgia Supreme Court rejected Thursday afternoon, convicted Johnson’s attorney, Brian Kammer, had asked the nation’s high court for a stay of execution.

Johnson, 50, was sentenced to death in Dougherty Superior Court for the 1994 murder of Angela Sizemore, whom he was seen with in an Albany bar hours before her death.

In addition to denying Johnson’s motion for a stay of execution, the Georgia Supreme Court denied his request to appeal a ruling made Wednesday by the Butts County Superior Court. The Superior Court both denied his motion for a stay and dismissed his claims, including his claim that new evidence shows the eyewitness testimony was unreliable and the State failed to disprove that someone else could have committed the crime. That led to the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday night that went past the scheduled 7 p.m. execution time.

In a preface to the clemency application, Kammer placed in quotes: “It would be an atrocious violation of our Constitution and the Principles upon which it is based to execute an innocent person.”

Johnson was scheduled to die by lethal injection at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, which wasthe fourth death penalty carried out this year in Georgia.

Johnson was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Angela Sizemore, who he had met at a west Albany bar named Fundamentals, in the early hours of March 24, 1994. The bar owner and its security officer, who both knew Johnson, testified they had seen Johnson and Sizemore kissing and behaving amorously.

Evidence at trial indicated that Johnson and Sizemore left Fundamentals together and authorities say they were seen walking toward 16th Avenue. Around 8 a.m. on March 24, 1994, a man walking his dog found Sizemore’s white Suburban parked behind an apartment complex in East Albany, her body lying across the front passenger seat. Later reports showed she’d been cut and stabbed 41 times with a small, dull knife.

Kammer has maintained Johnson’s innocence, stating that no incriminating DNA or fingerprints were found in Sizemore’s SUV, that there was only a “drop” of Sizemore’s blood found on Johnson’s leather jacket, and none was found on the alleged murder weapon. Johnson has admitted having consensual sex with Sizemore, then punching her in the nose and drawing blood because she later insisted on “snuggling.”

Johnson told police that the last time he saw the victim she was sitting in a field and crying.

Deputy Attorney General Beth Burton wrote on Tuesday in response to a filing by Johnson’s attorney that the condemned Johnson “has been repeatedly given avenues and opportunities to attempt to present evidence to support his claim (of innocence). He has repeatedly failed. The miscarriage of justice in this case would be if the victim’s 26-year-old daughter, who was five at the time of her mother’s murder, is not allowed closure in this case.”

Officials with the Georgia Department of Corrections said Johnson requested a six-pack of beer as his last meal, but the request was denied because the alcohol was a contraband item. Johnson was to get the same one the other 78 death row inmates were to have — baked fish, slaw, cornbread, crisp drop cookies, dry mixed beans. cheese grits and fruit punch.

The department said there have been 57 men and one woman executed in Georgia since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1973. Thirty-five prior to Johnson were put to death by lethal injection.

Jim West contributed to this report.