Georgia Supreme Court rules on COVID-19 execution ban

A Georgia Supreme Court opinion issued Tuesday could stop an execution ban based on the availability of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Attorneys with the Federal Defender Program argued that the vaccine was not attainable for infants younger than 6 months old, which would validate a court order that stopped executions until the vaccine was "readily available to all ages."

The state issued an execution warrant in 2022 for Virgil Delano Presnell Jr., the state's longest serving inmate on Georgia's death row, but his execution was stayed based on the arguments about the vaccine's availability. Presnell was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1976 murder of an 8-year-old girl and the sexual assault of another...