White Supremacist to be Executed for 1994 Murder
Posted: Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
ATHENS, Georgia—A white supremacist who murdered one of his followers has a new execution date—Wednesday, a day after a Georgia judge corrected a legal mistake that delayed his execution just hours before it was supposed to occur.
William Mark Mize was scheduled to be put to death lethal injection at 7p.m. yesterday because of his involvement of the 1994 murder of Eddie Tucker. Tucker was shot to death by Mize and another man after he advised against burning down an Athens crack house.
Tuesday was the planned execution date for Mize. The Georgia Supreme Court issued a temporary halt because a trial judge had denied Mize’s request for a hearing, but never decided upon the motion itself.
Tuesday afternoon, the motion was denied, which set up the new date for Wednesday. The top Georgia court turned down his appeal request on Wednesday, denying another stay of execution.
Mize’s attorney believe that the appeals request should be heard because it is still unclear that the evidence concludes his role in the murder. They said that the state introduced “inflammatory, irrelevant evidence” about Mize’s racist beliefs in order to prejudice the jury.
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled in 1998 that a defendant’s racial or political beliefs do not have an affect on a ruling, but in this case it served as the motive.
Mize was the leader of a small white supremacist group called the National Vatilian Aryan Party, which is similar to the Ku Klux Klan.
Tucker applied to join the group and was then ordered by Mize and another supporter, Chris Hattrup, to burn a house down on October 15, 1994, as an initiation.
When Tucker failed to burn the house down, Mize then turned to Hattrup and asked if he knew what they had to do. They led Tucker into the woods where Hattrup fired a shot into the back of his chest. Mize shot Tucker in the head, which lead to his death.
Mize’s girlfriend witnessed the murder and in 1995 agreed to testify against him, thereby releasing her from any charges.
Mize took the stand in front of jurors during the sentencing and told them that he wanted nothing less than the death penalty—which was granted.
Hattrup is serving life in prison after pleading guilty to murder, and has claimed that he was the one who fired the last shot that killed Tucker.
Appellate courts dismissed his statements, saying that they did not make sense. They believe he was either too drunk to remember, or is trying to defend his friend.
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