The Nation - News from Sept. 2, 1987

William (Billy) Mitchell, cursing those who denied him clemency, was executed in Georgia’s electric chair for murdering a 14-year-old boy in a robbery that netted $160. Mitchell, 35, was the fourth person executed in the state this year and the 11th since Georgia resumed executions in 1983. Seconds before he was electrocuted, a cocky and smiling Mitchell gave a clenched fist salute to his lawyers and cursed Wayne Snow, chairman of the state Board of Pardons and Paroles. Snow said at a news conference earlier in the day that no clemency would be granted because Mitchell’s was “one case where it seems . . . there were no redeeming qualities in this individual.”