Execution scheduled June 18 for Wallace Fugate

EATONTON - A June 18 execution date has been set for a Putnam County man convicted of fatally shooting his ex-wife in front of their 15-year-old son 11 years ago. <br> <br> Wallace Fugate, 52, would be the seventh man put to death since Georgia adopted lethal injection as its method of execution. <br> <br> The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Fugate&#39;s appeal this week. On Friday, Putnam County Judge William Prior signed his death warrant, and a few hours later his execution date was set. <br> <br> Stephen Bright, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights and now Fugate&#39;s lawyer, already has filed an appeal challenging lethal injection, which replaced Georgia&#39;s electric chair in October. <br> <br> Fugate&#39;s son, Mark, who was slain five years after his mother in an unrelated case, gave two accounts of his mother&#39;s death. He told police his view was blocked and that he could not tell whether Fugate grabbed his mother by the hair and fired the gun in her face. <br> <br> At the trial, he testified that he saw his father tilt his mother&#39;s head back, pull the trigger and then look at him and smile. <br> <br> The record of the trial and appeals shows Fugate&#39;s appointed trial lawyers did not challenge the son&#39;s testimony. <br> <br> ``This is the result of Georgia&#39;s failure to provide lawyers for poor people accused of crimes,&#39;&#39; Bright said. ``The federal courts just aren&#39;t protecting the rights to lawyers.&#34;