JACKSON - A man who fatally shot an Augusta pizza store manager during a 1994 robbery in which he stole a little more than $100 to give to his girlfriend was executed Tuesday by lethal injection. It was a case eerily similar to a robbery-murder that happened in Oakwood in 1991.
Mark Howard McClain, 42, was put to death at a state prison 50 miles south of Atlanta after his appeals were exhausted and a bid for clemency was rejected.
McClain declined to make any statement. When asked if would like a final prayer said for him, he said "No, I'm fine." After being injected with the chemicals, his chest started heaving and his breathing fluttered. He was pronounced dead at 7:24 p.m.
McClain declined a special last meal and, according to prison officials, he did not eat the regular prison meal consisting of chicken and rice, collard greens, carrots, beans, cornbread, iced tea and bread pudding.
He was convicted of killing 28-year-old Kevin Brown during a robbery at a Domino's Pizza in Augusta. Authorities said McClain gave the money to his girlfriend without telling her where he got it. She later testified against him.
In the Oakwood case, John Copeland Collins, also a Domino's Pizza store manager, was gunned down by Stephen Anthony Mobley during a robbery. Mobley was executed for the crime on March 1 2005.
McClain told jurors he intended only to rob the store, but shot Brown because he believed the manager was pursuing him. But Brown, who weighed 450 pounds and could not move quickly, was found lying behind the counter.
McClain was the third person executed in Georgia this year.
In his appeals, McClain argued, among other things, that his trial attorney provided ineffective assistance to him. Court records show that his trial attorney met with him between 20 to 30 minutes before trial, interviewed McClain's father and sister, and secured the help of a mental health expert. McClain claimed the attorney failed to discover and present mitigating evidence regarding his criminal history, childhood abuse, substance abuse, neurological disorder, and good character.
Recently, McClain argued that he deserved a lighter sentence because the shooting was the result of a "single, panicky .22 pistol shot from a considerable distance away." His appeal attorney argued that his client's case was the only robbery homicide case out of 55 across the state in 1995 to result in a death penalty.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a push by his attorney to grant him a reprieve until the justices resolve an Alabama death penalty case that centers on whether a new trial should be granted if a trial lawyer fails to raise certain objections during the penalty phase of the trial. That case is set to be heard in November.
Prosecutors had urged the court against intervening, saying that McClain's arguments rehashed earlier appeals that had already been denied by state and federal courts.
No one from the victim's family witnessed Tuesday's execution, and there was no one from either side outside the prison afterward. McClain declined a sedative offered to condemned inmates before executions.
(AccessNorthGa.com's Ken Stanford contributed to this story.)
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