Georgia leads US in executions this year, set for 9th

ATLANTA — Lawyers seeking to block Tuesday’s scheduled execution of a man convicted of killing his father-in-law after a custody fight over a young son have argued a juror lied about her own messy relationship history and swayed fellow jurors to vote for a death sentence.

William Sallie should be granted a new trial because of the alleged juror bias, but courts haven’t properly considered that evidence because he missed a filing deadline by eight days at a time when he didn’t have a lawyer, his lawyers said in court filings.

The 50-year-old inmate, who was convicted of murder in the fatal shooting of John Lee Moore in March 1990, was set to receive a lethal injection Tuesday evening at the state prison in Jackson.

At his second trial in 2001, a woman eventually chosen as a juror lied during jury selection and failed to disclose domestic violence, messy divorces and a child custody battle that were “bizarrely similar” to Sallie’s case, his lawyers said.

The defense team made those arguments in a clemency petition to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, urging it to act as a “fail safe” against a miscarriage of justice.