Gwinnett Killer Wants Firing Squad Due To Health Issues

LAWRENCEVILLE, GA - A condemned Gwinnett killer has filed a federal lawsuit asking to be executed by a firing squad because his veins are so narrow that lethal injection could cause him excruciating pain, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Nance was sentenced to death in 2002 by a Gwinnett jury for fatally shooting 43-year-old Gabor Balogh when he resisted giving up his car. Nance had just robbed the Tucker Federal Savings and Loan in Lilburn and was looking for a getaway car to escape.

In 1924, the state began using the electric chair, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. After the state Supreme Court ruled the chair unconstitutional in 2001, Georgia switched to lethal injection and has used it ever since.

Georgia’s lethal injection procedure involves the intravenous application of pentobarbital.

The last execution by firing squad nationwide occurred in 2010 in Utah, which still allows that method of capital punishment.

Nance’s veins are “severely compromised” and extremely difficult to locate, the lawsuit said. If lethal injection is attempted, there is a substantial risk that Nance’s veins will lose their integrity, leading to leakage of the pentobarbital into the surrounding tissue, the suit said.

In addition, Nance has, for several years, been taking increased dosages of a drug to relieve chronic back pain. This drug has altered Nance’s brain chemistry in such a way to compromise the effectiveness of the pentobarbital, causing an even greater chance of him being in great pain for an extended period of time, the suit said, according to the AJC.

In 2017, Georgia death-row inmate J.W. Ledford Jr. also asked for a firing squad because he’d used the same drug for his chronic back pain as Nance. But courts rejected his request and he was put to death by lethal injection.

“If he needs a firing squad, then let him have it,” said Gwinnett District Attorney Danny Porter. “It’s certainly a unique request.”

When asked about Nance’s lawsuit, State Department of Corrections spokeswoman Lori Benoit said her agency does not comment on pending litigation. Attempts to reach Nance’s lawyers were unsuccessful, thee AJC said.

Nance’s appeals are in their final stages. He must submit filings to the U.S. Supreme Court by Feb. 12.