ATLANTA — The state of Georgia will have to wait until next year if it intends to move forward with the execution of Stacey Ian Humphreys after the first execution warrant expired at noon Wednesday.

Humphreys, who was convicted of the 2003 murders of two Cobb County real estate agents, was set to be executed Dec. 17. But the State Board of Pardons and Paroles postponed his clemency hearing and execution last week because of legal concerns over potential conflicts of interest for two of the board’s five members.

The execution warrant, obtained by Cobb District Attorney Sonya Allen on Dec. 1, granted the state a seven-day window to execute Humphreys, which began noon Dec. 17 and ended noon Wednesday.

Since the window has passed and Humphreys was not executed by Christmas Eve, a new execution warrant must by obtained by Allen to carry it out.

According to Georgia law, a Cobb County Superior Court judge will have to issue an order, and once that order is signed, a new seven-day window will be set. However, the new window must be no less than 10 days and no more than 20 days from the day the order was signed.

Once the window is set, the Georgia Department of Corrections sets the time and date within the seven-day period for when the execution will take place.

The parole board would need to lift the stay currently in place before a new execution warrant can be sought. But the board is still waiting for Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney todetermine whether at least one of the board members must recuse themselves from Humphreys’ clemency hearing.

During an emergency hearing last week, McBurney did not indicate when he might issue a ruling, but he did express concerns about a rushed clemency hearing being scheduled once he did.

La’Quandra Smith, the parole board’s attorney, said should the suspension be lifted, the board would most likely provide a 24-hour notice for the defendant and his attorneys, “depending on whether the window for execution is still open.”

Attorneys for Humphreys are arguing for the recusal of parole board Vice Chair Wayne V. Bennett and newly appointed board member Kimberly McCoy because of their involvement in Humphreys’ trial.

Bennett was the Glynn County sheriff in charge of courthouse security in Brunswick, where the murder trial was held because of pretrial publicity in Cobb. McCoy worked for the Cobb DA’s office and served as an advocate for the families of the victims.

McCoy decided to abstain from voting, but said she planned to sit in on the clemency hearing anyway. Humphreys’ attorneys and McBurney questioned whether abstaining was enough.

Humphreys was sentenced to death in 2007 for the 2003 killings of Cyndi Williams and Lori Brown, who were strangled and then shot to death in the model home of a Powder Springs subdivision.

In 2010, the Georgia Supreme Court upheld the death penalty imposed against Humphreys. On Oct. 14, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Humphreys’ request to appeal a district court’s decision to deny his federal habeas relief, ending his direct appeal proceedings and state and federal habeas corpus proceedings.

However, the high court’s decision was split, with three liberal justices dissenting. In their dissenting opinion, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote about a juror who, during jury selection, “misleadingly omitted critical details” of her own experience with a similar crime and “then bullied the other jurors into voting” for the death penalty.

In his clemency application, Humphreys’ attorneys acknowledged he committed the killings and said he takes responsibility for his actions. But they contend 11 of the 12 trial jurors were ready to sentence him to life without parole before the potentially biased juror intervened.

“Less than five weeks after Mr. Humphreys was sentenced to death, investigators with the Georgia Capital Defender discovered that Stacey Humphreys’ jury had been deadlocked 11-1 in favor of life without parole, but one juror ‘wasn’t going to let that happen,’” attorney Kelyn Smith wrote in the clemency application.

The juror had every right to have her voice heard during deliberations, Smith wrote, but she did not have the right to berate jurors or mislead them in order for them to change their vote.

There are limited circumstances in which judges can inquire into jury deliberations. However, the board can grant clemency and spare his life, Humphreys’ attorneys argued.

Once the execution is scheduled, a clemency hearing in front of the parole board will be held. At the conclusion of the hearing, board members are given a ballot to secretly cast their vote on whether to grant clemency. Once votes are tallied, parties will be notified of the result.

The board doesn’t need to be unanimous, but they need a majority. The board has held six clemency hearings since October 2019, granting clemency only once, to Jimmy Fletcher Meders, whose death sentence was commuted to life without parole in January 2020.

If executed, Humphreys would become the 55th Georgia inmate put to death by lethal injection. The last inmate executed by the state was Willie James Pye on March 20, 2024.

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