Wellons’ motion to intervene denied

ATLANTA — The Georgia Supreme Court of Georgia has denied a motion filed by Marcus A. Wellons to intervene in the appeal of Warren Lee Hill.

The vote was 6-1, with Justice Robert Benham dissenting.

Wellons, 59, is scheduled to be put to death tonight at 7 p.m. by lethal injection at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. He was convicted in Cobb County in 1993 of raping and strangling 15-year-old India Roberts, who lived in Vinings, near the home of Wellons’ girlfriend.

Hill, who is also under a death sentence, had been granted a stay of execution last summer by a Fulton County Superior Court Judge to review the constitutionality of a Georgia statute that protects as a “state secret” the identities of the producers and suppliers of Georgia’s lethal injection drugs. On May 19, 2014, however, this Court issued an opinion reversing that stay.

Wellons had sought to intervene in Hill’s appeal while that appeal is still within the jurisdiction of this Court. No other matter involving Wellons’ scheduled execution is currently before the Supreme Court.