Texas Set to Execute LeJames Norman as Georgia Halts Stacey Humphreys' Death

Texas is preparing to execute LeJames Norman on Wednesday evening for his role in the 2005 shooting deaths of three people in a rural home, while a separate execution scheduled for the same time in Georgia has been put on hold by a judge.

Norman, 40, is set to die by lethal injection of pentobarbital at 6 p.m. CDT at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was sentenced to death for the killings of Samuel Roberts, 24, Tiffani Peacock, 18, and Celso Lopez, 38, at the house they shared in Edna, a small city about 100 miles southwest of Houston.

Court records show Norman and Ker'Sean Ramey believed cocaine was in the home and planned to steal it, but found no drugs and shot the three victims. Lopez was shot four times, including three times in the back of the head; Peacock was shot twice in the head; and Roberts was shot five times in the chest, neck and head.

Norman was arrested about five months later while trying to re-enter the United States from Mexico. He pleaded guilty to capital murder, leaving his punishment to a jury. Ramey was also convicted and sentenced to death, with his execution set for next week.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday declined to commute Norman's sentence or recommend a 90-day reprieve. After the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied a stay motion based on claims about the prosecution's actions, Norman's attorneys asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the decision. In 2017, the high court refused to review an appeal raising questions about the competence of his trial lawyers.

In Georgia, Stacey Humphreys, 53, had been scheduled to die at 7 p.m. EDT at the state prison near Jackson for the 2003 killings of Cyndi Williams, 33, and Lori Brown, 21. A judge issued a stay late Tuesday after Humphreys' lawyers filed a petition seeking a resentencing under a new state law that allows victims of abuse to have their sentences reconsidered if they can link their crimes to abuse they suffered.

A lawyer for the state told the judge that if a stay were ordered, they would immediately appeal to keep the execution on track. The judge wrote that if an appellate court rules before Wednesday evening that Humphreys is not entitled to a hearing on his petition, he will consider lifting the stay.

Humphreys was convicted of malice murder and other crimes in the killings of the two women, who worked as real estate agents for a new subdivision in the Atlanta suburb of Powder Springs. Evidence at trial showed he entered the sales office in a model home around midday on Nov. 3, 2003, forced the women to strip naked and provide their bank PINs, then shot them. He withdrew more than $3,000 from their accounts, according to court filings, and told police he had taken out high-interest payday loans and needed money for a truck payment.

Witnesses reported seeing a man matching Humphreys' description at the sales office and a vehicle matching his black Dodge Durango in the parking lot. Police tried to question him at his Dunwoody home days later; he fled and was arrested in Wisconsin after a high-speed chase.

Humphreys' lawyers have also argued that his death sentence was tainted by a biased juror who lied during jury selection and bullied others into voting for death. Courts have repeatedly rejected those arguments on procedural grounds, though U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by the other two liberal justices, wrote last year that the issue should be further explored rather than left "caught in a web of procedural barriers."

His legal team further contended that his clemency application was heard by only four of the five members of the State Board of Pardons and Paroles. A judge had ordered one member to recuse herself after agreeing with Humphreys' lawyers that she had a conflict of interest because she previously worked as a victim advocate with the Cobb County district attorney's office and had worked with the victims in his case. The parole board denied clemency on Tuesday.

If Norman's execution proceeds, it would be Texas' fifth this year. Georgia has yet to carry out an execution in 2025. Florida has been the nation's busiest death chamber, accounting for more than half of the 25 executions already carried out in the United States this year.