Vass: State correct to switch to lethal injection

GAINESVILLE - Former Hall County Sheriff Bob Vass who now sits on the state Board of Corrections says Georgia did the right thing when it switched from the electric chair to lethal injection for executions.

Vass commented during an interview for a special edition of WDUN NEWS TALK 550's Northeast Georgia This Week titled "The Death Penalty in Georgia." The program will be broadcast at 8:05 Sunday morning.

"I just felt like the state should be above how it executes people rather than (stooping to the level of) the person you're executing," Vass said. "It's completely painless. A person generally yawns and goes to sleep."

But what about the pain and suffering the condemn's victim may have been put through?

"I think that we're going to leave that up to the good Lord in heaven," Vass said. "I don't know that man punishing man with pain is the way to go."

By executing murderers, Vass said, you're taking them out of society - regardless of the means by which its done.

Vass said the execution of Stephen Anthony Mobley, 39, last Tuesday for the 1991 murder of John Copeland Collins, 24, during the robbery of a Domino's Pizza in Oakwood went "by the book."

Mobley was pronounced dead at 8:00 p.m. - one hour after he was supposed to be executed and eight minutes after the process began.

The delay was the result of a request from the U.S. Supreme Court which was considering a last-minute appeal from Mobley's attorneys.

Vass also says the time Mobley spent on death row - through the various stages of appeal of his case - is about average in Georgia.

"The average length of stay on death row in Georgia is 13 years and seven months and I think Mobley was there about that long."

Vass, who served as a federal probation officer before being elected Hall County Sheriff in 1992, was appointed to the state Board of Corrections in 1991. His five-year term expires next year.

The robbery-murder that sent Mobley to death row occurred before he took office and he was already being held in the Hall County Detention Center before Vass took office. Vass says he remained there for about 18 months after he took over while awaiting trial and later transfer to the state prison system.

Asked what kind of a prisoner he was, Vass said "he was something of a rabble-rouser."