Clemency denied to inmate set to die Wednesday

By RHONDA COOK
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/02/08

The State Board of Pardons and Paroles refused Monday to grant
clemency to double murderer Curtis Osborne, who is scheduled to die
by lethal injection Wednesday.
Osborne's advocates argued that he should not die because his trial
attorney, the late Johnny Mostiler, was a racist and did not try to
persuade a Spalding County jury to sentence Osborne to life because
of his mental illness, drug addiction and dysfunctional family history.
The five-member board apparently rejected pleas for a commutation
made by former President Jimmy Carter, former U.S. Attorney General
Griffin Bell and former deputy U.S. Attorney General Larry Thompson.
The board also was not swayed by the arguments of former Georgia
Supreme Court Chief Justice Norman Fletcher, who said that, because
of court rules, he was unable on three occasions to rule in favor of
Osborne when valid appeals were before the high court.
Osborne was sentenced to death in Spalding County for fatally
shooting Arthur Jones and Linda Lisa Seaborne on Aug. 7, 1990.
Osborne allegedly killed Jones because Osborne didn't want to give
him the $400 he got for selling Jones' motorcycle. Seaborne was
killed because she was there.
Osborne is black while his trial attorney, Mostiler, was white.
The board's decision came 11 days after it commuted the death
sentence of Samuel David Crowe little more than two hours before he
was to have been executed for a murder he admitted committing.
The board did not give a reason for that decision.
If Osborne is executed, he would be the second Georgia death row
inmate put to death this year. On May 6, William Earl Lynd was
executed for the 1988 slaying of his live-in girlfriend, Ginger Moore.