Johnson faces Monday clemency hearing

ATLANTA — The State Board of Pardons and Paroles set a Monday appointment to hear why it should commute an Albany man’s death sentence.

Marcus Ray Johnson is scheduled to be executed next Wednesday for the 1994 murder of Angela Sizemore, a woman he met at a west Albany bar. If executed, he will be the 30th inmate in Georgia put to death by lethal injection.

Johnson and his attorneys will meet with the board at 9 a.m. on Monday.

Johnson was convicted in April 1998 of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, rape and aggravated battery and subsequently sentenced to death. According to prosecutors, when police tracked down Johnson following Sizemore’s death, he said: “I’m Marcus Ray Johnson. I’m the person you’re looking for.”

In addition, investigators found Sizemore’s blood on the leather jacket Johnson was wearing, prosecutors said. Additionally, a pocketknife Johnson had was consistent with knife wounds police found on Sizemore’s body.

A Dougherty County Superior Court judge last week signed Johnson’s death warrant. The board has the power to convert Johnson’s sentence to a life sentence or a life sentence without the possibility of parole; or, it could take no action.