Amnesty International is extremely concerned that Warren McCleskey faces imminent execution despite very substantial arguments which mitigate in favour of clemency. McCleskey, who is black, was convicted of the murder of a white police officer. In 1987 the Supreme Court narrowly dismissed an appeal in his case based on a claim that the death penalty in Georgia was applied in a racially discriminatory manner. In 1991 the Supreme Court denied McCleskey’s second habeas corpus petition: AI is concerned that the petition was denied not on its merits but on procedural grounds.
