Nicholas Ingram was executed by the State of Georgia for the murder of J.C. Sawyer
According to court documents Nicholas Ingram would break into the home of J.C. Sawyer. During the robbery Ingram would fatally shoot J.C. Sawyer and shoot and injure Mary Sawyer
Nicholas Ingram would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Nicholas Ingram would be executed by way of the electric chair on April 7 1995
Nicholas Ingram Photos
Nicholas Ingram Case
Nicholas Lee Ingram, a 31-year-old British-American whose death sentence for a killing here 11 years ago had created an outcry in England, was executed tonight after a one-day delay in which his lawyers went all the way to the United States Supreme Court in an effort to overturn his sentence.
The execution by electric chair took place shortly after 9 P.M. at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Center, a 1,400-inmate prison in Jackson, about 40 miles south of Atlanta. Mr. Ingram was pronounced dead at 9:15 P.M.
The execution had been scheduled for Thursday, but Mr. Ingram’s lawyers obtained a one-day stay from Judge Horace T. Ward of Federal District Court here.
Mr. Ingram had already had his head shaved and the offer of the traditional last meal, which he refused, when the stay was granted an hour before he was scheduled to die.
Today, Judge Ward denied Mr. Ingram’s lawyers’ appeal of the sentence, but gave them 72 hours, or until Monday, to appeal his ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta. The appeals court vacated that stay, and the United States Supreme Court subsequently denied any further appeals.
Mr. Ingram was convicted of killing J. W. Sawyer, 55, after he robbed him and his wife, Mary, of $60 and their pickup truck at their home in suburban Cobb County outside Atlanta.
Testimony in the trial disclosed that Mr. Ingram, who was 19 at the time and also facing a burglary charge, marched the couple at gunpoint out of their house into nearby woods, tied them to a tree and shot them. Mr. Sawyer’s wound was fatal, but Mrs. Sawyer feigned death and was eventually able to escape and go for help.
Mr. Ingram’s mother, Ann, and other relatives solicited and received statements appealing for clemency from 53 members of the British Parliament, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the president of the European Parliament and a number of human-rights groups. Earlier this week, Mrs. Ingram appealed for the intervention of Prime Minister John Major of Britain in a letter she delivered to him while he was visiting Washington.
In a handwritten response, the Prime Minister replied: “I found your letter very moving and I can imagine the profound distress you must be feeling. But I have concluded, with deepest regret, that there are no proper grounds for the British Government to intervene with the State of Georgia.”
In an “open letter to the British people” dated last Sunday from death row, and published in London newspapers, Mr. Ingram thanked those who had appealed on his behalf, adding: ‘If I die, I hope it is not for nothing. I hope people will see that a ritualistic killing in the electric chair solves nothing.”
In seeking to halt the execution, Mr. Ingram’s lawyers argued that they had only recently learned that their client had been heavily drugged and medicated by prison officials before his 1983 trial and therefore was not aware enough of the proceedings to show a contrition that might have influenced jurors not to recommend the death penalty.
They also argued that his lawyer in that trial was not told of a diagnosis that Mr. Ingram had psychiatric problems, a diagnosis that might have altered the trying of the case.
The Georgia Attorney General, Michael Bowers, countered that those issues had been addressed in previous appeals. The courts agreed.
The court appeals came after the Georgia Board of Pardons and Appeals denied the a request for clemency from Mr. Ingram on Thursday. J. Wayne Garner, chairman of the board, announced its decision after an emotional hearing at its Atlanta offices, a conference call with the relatives of Mr. Sawyer, the victim, and a visit to Mr. Ingram.
“Having reviewed and considered its own investigation of the defendant, the nature and circumstances of his offense, his sentence,” the board’s order read, “it is ordered hereby that the clemency application on behalf of Nicholas Lee Ingram requesting commutation of his sentence of death be denied.”
