British Native Executed After Stay Rejected

A British-born killer was executed Friday night for kidnaping and killing a man in 1983. His electrocution came just after a U.S. Supreme Court justice rejected a final request for a stay.

Nicholas Lee Ingram’s impending execution had triggered a media frenzy in Britain and a torrent of phone calls and letters--including one from the Archbishop of Canterbury--to prison and parole officials in Georgia.

Ingram, 31, was convicted of murdering J.C. Sawyer, who was robbed of $60, tied to a tree and shot near his home in Marietta, north of Atlanta. His wife also was shot but survived and identified Ingram as the killer.

Ingram, who holds dual citizenship, was born in England in 1963 to a British mother and American father. The family moved to Georgia a year later.

Ingram’s mother has strongly supported her son’s appeals and asked the British government to intervene. But Prime Minister John Major, visiting Washington this week, declined.

In permitting the execution, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy upheld the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals’ rejection of a three-day stay that had been granted earlier Friday by a federal judge.

In his earlier ruling, U.S. District Judge Horace Ward rejected Ingram’s appeal in which he claimed he was secretly drugged during his 1984 trial with an anti-psychotic drug that made him appear remorseless.

But he granted the three-day stay to allow the 11th Circuit to review his decision.

The execution was originally scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday, but Ward granted a one-day stay an hour before.