The Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles has scheduled a clemency hearing for condemned inmate Stacey Ian Humphreys, nearly nine months after a previously scheduled clemency meeting was abruptly postponed as litigation halted his December 2025 execution.
The Board announced that it will hold a specially called meeting on Tuesday, September 15, 2026, at 9:00 a.m. for the sole purpose of receiving information for and against clemency for Humphreys. The proceeding is expected to be conducted in a closed executive session, as permitted under Georgia law. No public comment will be taken and no other business is scheduled.
The meeting comes one day before Humphreys is currently scheduled to be executed by lethal injection.
In Georgia, the State Board of Pardons and Paroles has the exclusive constitutional authority to grant executive clemency in death penalty cases. The Board has the authority to commute a death sentence to life imprisonment, issue a stay of execution, or deny clemency.
Second Clemency Meeting Scheduled for Humphreys
Humphreys was previously scheduled to be executed on Dec. 17, 2025, at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. A Cobb County Superior Court judge issued an execution order establishing a seven-day window beginning at noon Dec. 17 and continuing through noon Dec. 24.
The Parole Board scheduled a clemency meeting for Dec. 16, 2025, once again one day before the scheduled execution, but the hearing was postponed due to litigation brought forth by Humphreys challenging the participation of two members of the Parole Board in consideration of his clemency request.
Humphreys’ attorneys argued that Board members Kimberly McCoy and Wayne Bennett had conflicts stemming from their connections to his 2007 trial.
McCoy had worked as a victim advocate in the Cobb County District Attorney’s Office and was assigned to work with the victims in Humphreys’ case. Bennett, meanwhile, was sheriff of Glynn County when Humphreys’ trial was moved there because of pretrial publicity.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney stayed the execution and later ruled that McCoy had a conflict of interest and must recuse herself from Humphreys’ clemency proceedings. He did not find the same conflict existed for Bennett.
Humphreys’ attorneys have continued arguing that a replacement should be appointed so his clemency application can be considered by a full five-member Board.
The Georgia Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of the dispute. Humphreys has since taken the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court, where a stay application was filed Aug. 28.
Execution Still Scheduled
Humphrey’s execution is still on the schedule, however. The Georgia Department of Corrections has now scheduled Humphreys’ execution for 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, September 16, 2026, at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.
Case Background
Humphreys was convicted and sentenced to death for the November 2003 murders of real estate agents Cindy Williams and Lori Brown in Cobb County.
The evidence, construed in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdicts, showed the following:
At approximately 12:40 p.m. on Nov. 3, 2003, Humphreys, a convicted felon who was still on parole, entered a home construction company’s sales office located in a model home for a new subdivision in Cobb County. Cindy Williams and Lori Brown were employed there as real estate agents. Finding Ms. Williams alone in the office, Humphreys used a stolen handgun to force her to undress and to reveal the personal identification number (PIN) for her automated teller machine (ATM) card. After calling Ms. Williams’ bank to learn the amount of her current balance, Humphreys tied her underwear so tightly around her neck that, when her body was discovered, her neck bore a prominent ligature mark and her tongue was protruding from her mouth, which had turned purple. While choking Ms. Williams, Humphreys forced her to get down on her hands and knees and to move into Ms. Brown’s office and behind Ms. Brown’s desk. Humphreys placed his handgun at Ms. Williams’ back and positioned a bag of balloons between the gun and her body to muffle the sound of gunshots. He then fired a shot into her back that went through her lung and heart, fired a second shot through her head, and left her face-down on her hands and knees under the desk.
Ms. Brown entered the office during or shortly after Humphreys’ attack on Ms. Williams, and he attacked her too. Ms. Brown suffered a hemorrhage in her throat that was consistent with her having been choked in a headlock-type grip or having been struck in the throat. Humphreys also forced Ms. Brown to undress and to reveal her PIN, called her bank to obtain her balance, and made her kneel with her head facing the floor. Then, while standing over Ms. Brown, Humphreys fired one gunshot through her head, this time using both a bag of balloons and Ms. Brown’s folded blouse to muffle the sound. He dragged her body to her desk, took both victims’ driver’s licenses and ATM and credit cards, and left the scene at approximately 1:30 p.m. Neither victim sustained any defensive wounds.
When the builder, whose office was located in the model home’s basement, heard the door chime of the security system indicating that someone had exited the sales office, he went to the sales office to meet with the agents. There he discovered Ms. Brown’s body and called 911. The responding police officer discovered Ms. Williams’ body.
After interviewing the builder and canvassing the neighborhood, the police released to the media descriptions of the suspect and a Dodge Durango truck seen at the sales office near the time of the crimes. In response, someone at the job site where Humphreys worked called to advise that Humphreys and his vehicle matched those descriptions and that Humphreys did not report to work on the day of the crimes. The police began to investigate Humphreys and made arrangements through his parole officer to meet with him on the morning of Nov. 7, 2003. Humphreys skipped the meeting, however, and eluded police officers who had him under surveillance.
Humphreys was apprehended in Wisconsin the following day. Police there recovered from the console of his rental vehicle a Ruger 9-millimeter pistol, which was determined to be the murder weapon. Swabbings from that gun revealed blood containing Ms. Williams’ DNA. A stain on the driver-side floormat of Humphreys’ Durango was determined to be blood containing Ms. Brown’s DNA.
After the murders, the victims’ ATM cards were used to withdraw over $3,000 from their accounts. Two days after the murders, Humphreys deposited $1,000 into his account, and he had approximately $800 in cash in his possession when he was arrested. Humphreys claimed in a statement to the police that he did not remember his actions at the time of the crimes. However, when asked why he fled, he said: “I know I did it. I know it just as well as I know my own name.” He also told the police that he had recently taken out some high-interest “payday” loans and that he “got over [his] head with that stinking truck.”
In 2004, Humphreys was indicted by a Cobb County Grand Jury for malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, kidnapping with bodily injury, armed robbery, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The State filed a notice to seek the death penalty.
Humphreys’ jury trial began on Sept. 18, 2007. On Sept. 25, 2007, Humphreys was found guilty of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, armed robbery, and kidnapping with bodily injury. He pled guilty to the charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
At the conclusion of the sentencing phase of trial, on Sept. 30, 2007, the jury found the existence of the ten statutory aggravating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury recommended a sentence of death for each of Humphreys’ two murder convictions. The trial court then sentenced Humphreys to death. Humphreys was further sentenced to twenty years concurrent for each count of aggravated assault, life imprisonment consecutive for each count of kidnapping with bodily injury, life imprisonment consecutive for each count of armed robbery and five years concurrent for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
On Oct. 8, 2007, Humphreys filed a motion for a new trial, which was denied on Feb. 19, 2009.
The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed Humphreys’ convictions and death sentences on March 15, 2010. Humphreys v. State, 287 Ga. 63 (2010). Humphreys filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the United States Supreme Court, which was denied on Nov. 15, 2010. Humphreys v. Georgia, 562 U.S. 1046 (2010).
Humphreys filed an application for writ of habeas corpus in the Superior Court of Butts County in 2011. After lengthy litigation, Humphreys’ writ of habeas corpus was denied on March 10, 2016.
This decision was appealed to the Supreme Court of Georgia in the form of an application for certificate of probable cause. Following extensive briefing by both parties, the application to appeal was denied on Aug. 18, 2017. Humphreys’ petition for writ of certiorari was denied by the United States Supreme Court on April 16, 2018. Humphreys v. Sellers, 584 U.S. 935 (2018).
On May 24, 2018, Humphreys filed a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. On Sept. 16, 2020, Humphreys’ petition for writ of habeas corpus was denied.
On Feb. 4, 2021, Humphreys appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. On June 11, 2024, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the lower court’s decision. Humphreys v. Warden, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 5724 (2022). Subsequently, on Oct. 21, 2025, the United States Supreme Court denied Humphreys’ writ of certiorari. Humphreys v. Warden, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 5724 (2025).
Decades of Appeals
Humphreys’ convictions and death sentences have been the subject of state and federal appeals spanning nearly two decades.
The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed his convictions and death sentences in 2010, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case later that year.
Humphreys filed state habeas corpus relief in 2011. His petition was denied in 2016 and the Georgia Supreme Court declined his application to appeal the ruling in 2017. The U.S. Supreme Court declined review in 2018.
Humphreys then pursued federal habeas relief in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. That petition was denied in 2020, and the federal appeals process ultimately failed to overturn his convictions or death sentences.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review that challenge in October 2025, clearing the way for Georgia officials to obtain the first execution order in December.
