Spivey took his hostages outside the mall to the parking lot, demanding that someone furnish him a car. Meanwhile, Allen got up and proceeded to Brer Rabbit's in an effort to get help. Spivey followed him, and then fired several times through a window into the restaurant. One bullet struck a bartender in the hip. Spivey then ordered a hostage, college professor and part-time bar waitress Mary Jane Davidson, to drive him to Alabama. Authorities captured him just before daybreak, two miles south of Wedowee, Ala. They found $360 in cash believed to have come from the bar along with two guns -- a .38-caliber revolver and a .357 Smith and Wesson that had Bill Watson's name and badge number 197 engraved on the butt.

Spivey received a life sentence for the murder of Charles McCook. Spivey was tried twice for killing Watson. The first conviction in 1977 was thrown out because he was "compelled to be a witness against himself in a psychological exam," court records said. In 1983, a second Muscogee County jury convicted Spivey of murder, armed robbery and kidnapping.

Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (Spivey News)

News Source: Augusta Chronicle - January 26, 2002

MCG Leader Says Doctors' Role in Chamber is OK

Medical College of Georgia President Daniel W. Rahn on Friday backed away from an earlier request to keep MCG physicians out of the state's execution chamber. Dr. Rahn apologized for an "overly strong" Jan. 16 letter to Corrections Commissioner Jim Weatherington objecting to a physician employed by MCG's Georgia Correctional Health Care being asked to confirm death after executions. Dr. Rahn said he misunderstood exactly what the MCG physician was being asked to do in executions, such as the execution Thursday night of Ronald K. Spivey. "I've had conversations with the commissioner, and I'm satisfied that at present the role of GCHC physicians is acceptable," Dr. Rahn said.

But in his Jan. 16 letter, Dr. Rahn wrote: "We feel we cannot allow our physician staff to participate in this process in any capacity. I am aware that our (GCHC) physician has not been asked to administer the intravenous material, but even his presence in the death chamber could compromise his provider relationship with the inmate population." "We respect that," said Scott Stallings, the spokesman for the Georgia Department of Corrections. The department was prepared to ask a 2nd staff physician to attend executions to pronounce death, he said. The state pays about $109 million a year to GCHC and MCG to provide medical services at about 80 state facilities. Mr. Spivey, 62, died by lethal injection for the December 1976 murder of off-duty Columbus Police Officer Billy Watson, 41.

The execution guidelines call for 2 physicians to be present to pronounce death after a lethal injection is administered. A 3rd, privately contracted physician is there to assist prison staff in putting in an intravenous catheter to administer the drugs and to call for more drugs when needed, Mr. Stallings said. That contract physician had to cut Augusta native Jose High's chest the night of Nov. 6 so the tube could be inserted. Mr. High, 43, was executed for the July 1976 murder of 11-year-old Bonnie Bulloch in Taliaferro County. Those actions and other direct assistance are violations of a physician's ethics and of Georgia law, said Michael Mears, the director of the Multicounty Public Defender officer. His group is filing a complaint about it with the state board that licenses physicians. Mr. Mears' office has challenged the constitutionality of lethal injection in courts in Fulton and Muscogee counties. "We do know the contract doctors have participated in the executions," Mr. Mears said. "That's just plain wrong for a doctor to do that."

Ethical guidelines from the American Medical Association severely restrict what role a physician can play in a state execution. According to those guidelines, it is acceptable for a physician to certify death if someone else has declared the inmate dead first. Dr. Rahn said he was satisfied the GCHC physician's role fell within those guidelines.

News Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution - January 25, 2002

"Spivey Executed for Police Officer's Slaying," by Rhonda Cook. "Jackson -- Georgia executed its fifth man in three months Thursday, but it was the last time a doctor from the Medical College of Georgia would participate. Ronald Keith Spivey, 62, was pronounced dead at 7:34 p.m. at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. Spivey, a condemned cop killer was executed a few hours after the MCG president notified the Department of Corrections that its doctors would no longer participate in lethal injections. MCG doctors provide most of the medical care to state prisoners and one of them was used to pronounce inmates dead at executions.

Daniel Rahn said in a letter to corrections Commissioner Jim Wetherington that the school believed "it compromises the physicians' role as a treatment provider in the institution to also be a participant in the execution process." He said that conflict existed even though the prison doctors do not administer any of the three drugs that lead to an inmate's death. "Even his presence in the death chamber could compromise his provider relationship with the inmate population," he said.

It took seven minutes to end Spivey's life. He was sentenced to die for killing off-duty Columbus police Officer Billy Watson, who had interrupted a robbery at a bar. Spivey willingly walked to the gurney, where he was strapped down. He chatted almost constantly with the warden and at one time, asked for a drink of water. To the witnesses, Spivey apologized. "If I had a million lives, I couldn't say I'm sorry enough," he said.. . . . And what happened in that case changed me so much. I'm not the same person I was 25 years ago." Spivey denounced capital punishment. "In our society, we hear and say 'what would Jesus do.' You can believe I don't believe Jesus would do this. . . . It allows no room for redemption." He said the death penalty "dragged the victim's family and my family through living hell. It's incredibly sad that we live in a society that feels it has to kill people." He also urged his four friends who had come to "leave this thing without any bitterness, any hatred, any anger."

Spivey had spent 25 years on Georgia's death row, where 121 men and one woman remain. For much of the time, he was isolated from other condemned inmates because he often gave prison officials information against other prisoners. Thursday was the second death date for Spivey. He was scheduled to be electrocuted last March, but the Georgia Supreme Court called off the execution so it could review the use of the electric chair here. The court ruled in October that electrocution violated the constitutional protection from cruel and usual punishment, prompting the state to begin using lethal injection

News Source: Macon Telegraph

"Spivey Execution Scheduled for Tonight; Death penalty opponents held candlelight vigil Wednesday to urge Legislature to pass moratorium on executions; More vigils set for tonight," by Debbie Rhyne.

Ronald Keith Spivey is scheduled to die tonight - more than 25 years after committing a two-day crime spree that started with the murder of a Macon man. Spivey, who received a life sentence for the Macon murder of Charles McCook Jr., is sentenced to die for killing off-duty Columbus police officer Billy Watson Sr. If the 7 p.m. execution occurs, Spivey, 62, will be the fifth inmate put to death since lethal injection replaced the electric chair last October as the state's method of execution. Last year, Spivey came within hours of being put to death in the electric chair when the state Supreme Court halted the execution on a 4-3 vote, citing the possibility the chair constituted cruel and unusual punishment.

Tonight's planned execution comes in the wake of efforts by death penalty opponents to get the General Assembly to pass a moratorium on executions. Opponents cite the six Georgia cases and 93 cases from other states in which a death row inmate has been exonerated, as well as statistics they say indicate capital punishment is unfairly meted out based on a defendant's race and ability to hire an attorney. Wednesday night, a handful of death penalty opponents held a candlelight vigil in front of City Hall. Jay Shippen, vice president of Mercer University's chapter of Amnesty International, said the group has held vigils for three other inmates executed since last year and will continue to hold them as long as executions occur. "I think we're hoping to send a message that we are sympathetic to the friends and relatives of Billy Watson, but we're opposing the execution of Ronald Spivey," Shippen said. "It's unnecessary to imitate his crime. We feel like life without parole is real in Georgia, and there's no reason to kill him." Additional vigils were scheduled tonight outside death row in Jackson and at six other locations across the state.

Clyde McCook, the younger brother of Charles McCook Jr., said he feels a death sentence is appropriate. "He killed my brother," said McCook, who learned about his brother's 1976 murder on the news. "My feeling is he needs to be killed." Spivey's attorneys did not seek a clemency hearing with the state pardons and paroles board but instead sought to save his life through the state and federal court systems. Pending a last-minute reprieve, Spivey will be allowed to have visitors from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. today. He then will be given a physical, as well as time to shower, put on clean clothes and write a final statement. At 4:30 p.m., Spivey will be given his last meal - three cheeseburgers, chili, french fries, a milk shake and pickles.

Spivey spent much of his life in Macon. It was Dec. 27, 1976, when then 37-year-old Spivey shot and killed Charles McCook Jr. in a brawl over $20 at the Brown House Hotel on Broadway. A few hours later, Spivey was holding up the Final Approach Lounge in Columbus when Watson, who was working security, interrupted the robbery. Spivey shot the off-duty officer at point-blank range in the head and chest. While fleeing the scene, Spivey wounded two other people and took a waitress hostage. He was captured just before daybreak in Alabama. Spivey was ultimately convicted of two counts of murder, two counts of armed robbery, one count of kidnapping and one count of aggravated assault.

News Source: Macon Telegraph

"Spivey Executed by Lethal Injection 25 years After Crime."

JACKSON - After almost a quarter-century on death row, Ronald Keith Spivey was executed by lethal injection Thursday for the murder of an off-duty Columbus police officer. Spivey, 62, who got a life sentence for a slaying in Macon that launched his bloody crime spree in December 1976, was Georgia's fifth execution by injection. He was pronounced dead at 7:34 p.m. at the state prison in Jackson, south of Atlanta. "My daddy doesn't have to deal with this anymore," said Spivey's daughter, Ronnie Morgan.

Spivey was sentenced to death for killing Columbus police officer Bill Watson on Dec. 28, 1976. Watson, working as a security guard, interrupted a robbery at a Columbus bar and was shot twice at close range. Hours before, Spivey had killed Charles McCook at a Macon hotel bar because McCook refused to pay Spivey $20 he won in a pool game. Another man was wounded before Spivey fled. In his final statement Thursday night, Spivey apologized to the families of the victims and criticized the death penalty, saying he had become a different man in prison. "If I had a million lifetimes, I could never say I'm sorry enough," he said. "I've tried to be a decent a useful human being these last 25 years."

Retired Macon police Lt. Charles Grant crossed paths with Spivey about a week before the murders. He said he believes it was time the execution took place. "I think it's long past due," he said. "It's hard to believe it's taken this long to put the cold-blooded killer to death." Grant said he has never forgotten a conversation he had with Spivey days before the killings. Spivey was picked up for causing some kind of disturbance at a local lounge and was briefly sent to the hospital. Grant was sent to pick him up and had to use the last notch on his handcuffs to cuff the 6-foot-6-inch Spivey for the ride back to the jail. "He was sitting in the back (of the patrol car) and he said, 'I have nothing to live for,'" Grant said. "That's something I have never forgotten." Grant, who attended Watson's funeral, said Spivey received a just sentence for his crimes.

Spivey was to die in the electric chair March 6, 2001. But the state Supreme Court halted the execution with four hours to go, saying it needed time to review whether the chair was cruel and unusual punishment. The court threw out the chair in October, shifting all Georgia executions to injection and clearing the way again for Spivey to be put to death.

The execution took 10 minutes. Even after guards removed his microphone, Spivey continued talking, twice saying "I love you" to witnesses he had selected. He tried to sit up, then called out, "Deliver me. Deliver me to the love" before resting his head. "I'm really sad," said Lauren Giles, who was among the dozen protestors holding candles in a roped-off area for death penalty opponents. "It's hard for me to believe that he's gone." Giles, 21, an Emory University student, said she met Spivey while interning for Amnesty International. Giles said she supported capital punishment about two years ago, just before she began corresponding with Spivey. "He was very, very, very remorseful for what he had done," she said. Spivey's daughter also said she hopes to see the death penalty abolished. "Hopefully, one day this will get better," Ronnie Morgan said, noting that her father had faced seven previous execution dates. Jackson resident Angela Hardy questioned the delay. "For 25 years, he's had to live with this," Hardy said. "If we're going to do this, why is our justice so long?" At some recent Georgia executions there also have been pro-death penalty demonstrators present. But there were none Thursday night.

News Source: Augusta Chronicle

A TV cameraman watches Nadia Jilani (left) and Marguerite Rece take part in a candlelight vigil to protest the execution of Ronald Spivey. The vigil, held in front of the Municipal Building, was at 7 p.m. Thursday, the time Mr. Spivey was scheduled to die by lethal injection. Mr. Spivey was convicted of the 1976 slaying of a Columbus, Ga., police officer.

News Source: Columbus Ledger-Enquirer

"Spivey Apologizes to Victims in his Final Statement," by Richard Hyatt.

JACKSON, Ga. - With an IV stuck in each hand and a peaceful smile on his face, Ronald Keith Spivey was executed Thursday night, 25 years after a jury first sentenced him to die. Spivey was pronounced dead at 7:34 p.m. at the Georgia Diagnostic & Classification Prison. He offered a soft-spoken statement in which he apologized to those he had harmed and said the death penalty is not something that Jesus would do. "If I had a million lifetimes, I could never say I'm sorry enough," he said. "I've tried to be a decent and useful human being these last 25 years." He said the death penalty "offers no room for redemption and it drags the families -- my family and the victims' -- through hell."

The execution took 10 minutes. Even after guards removed his microphone, Spivey continued talking, twice saying "I love you" to witnesses he had selected. He tried to sit up, then called out, "Deliver me. Deliver me to the love" before resting his head. Spivey, 62, was the fifth Georgia inmate to die by lethal injection since it replaced the electric chair. He had been on death row since 1977, sent there by a Muscogee County jury that found him guilty of the murder of Columbus police officer Billy Watson in 1976.

Watson's widow, Linda Mosely, was on the prison grounds, wearing red that she had promised her late husband she would wear at his funeral. She was not allowed to witness the execution. The slain officer's three sisters gathered at the home of Billy Watson Jr. in Cataula awaiting word of Spivey's death. "Hate is not in my vocabulary," the younger Watson said. "I couldn't hate forever. I don't hate Spivey and I don't like the process." Spivey's cousin, Pat Seaborn, of Martinez, Ga., said he told her if he gets to heaven he hopes he sees the man he killed. "I want to say I'm sorry," he told her hours before the execution. Spivey walked into the sparse room shortly before 7 p.m. He chatted constantly with the warden and climbed onto the gurney when asked. With a phalanx of Columbus lawmen on the other side of the glass, Spivey said in his statement that he hopes his life in the last 25 years has been peaceful and useful.

Only one other inmate has been on Georgia's death row longer than Spivey, a mountain of a man at 6-foot-7, 360 pounds. A member of Mensa and a former professional basketball player, he lived in Columbus as a youngster while his older brother Bill was beginning his athletic career at Jordan High School. Bill Spivey, a 7-foot center, went on to star on the University of Kentucky's 1951 national championship team before being implicated in a point-shaving scandal that led to his lifetime ban by the NBA.

Ronald Spivey was twice sentenced to death for the Dec. 27, 1976, murder of Watson, a Columbus police officer working security at Peachtree Mall. He was also convicted for the murder of Charles McCook, shot and killed earlier that same night in Macon, Ga. Late that night, Watson walked into the Final Approach Lounge as Spivey was robbing the bar. Spivey wheeled and shot the officer and wounded two employees of an adjacent nightclub. Taking the slain policeman's revolver, he kidnapped a bartender from the Final Approach and took her with him to Wedowee, Ala., where he was arrested the following morning. Six months later, a Muscogee County jury sentenced him to the electric chair for the first time. Six years later, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new trial citing constitutional irregularities. In November of 1982, a second panel of jurors again found him guilty and again sentenced him to die.

In an effusive closing argument, prosecutor Bill Smith paced back and forth in front of the hulking Spivey and wagged a finger in his direction. He asked jurors to remember the real Spivey and not the one portrayed in a defense that Smith said "should have been across the street at the Springer Theater." "He has been dressed for the part in his new business suit and tie, his new dental work and his new glasses," said Smith, now a Superior Court judge. "Are they to shield from you those hard, cruel eyes that looked at Billy Watson before he killed him... that shed those crocodile tears when he was asked tough questions? Were those tears shed for Billy Watson -- who the defense didn't mention -- or are they shed for Ron?"

Douglas Peters, Spivey's attorney at the time, told the jury that his client was a diseased man. "Not so much now but when this happened." He retold stories of Spivey's abused childhood and pleaded for the jury to consider him "guilty but mentally ill." Smith countered by saying that such a decision would be like "compromising with the devil." That jury deliberated about four hours before reaching its decision. Judge Rufe McCombs, in her first capital case, ordered Spivey to die on Dec. 29, 1983. Her sentence was only another legal plateau in a case that has been in and out of court since that night in 1976.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report)

News Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution - January 24, 2002

"Execution Set for Today in Cop Killing." by Rhonda Cook.

Convicted cop killer Ronald Keith Spivey could have his last meal, his last visit with friends and relatives, his last day alive today as the state moves to make him the fifth man to die in Georgia by lethal injection. His attorneys scrambled to save him from execution by challenging the qualifications of three of the five members of the state Board of Pardons and Paroles, an effort similar to ones that have failed in three of the four previous executions. Spivey's lawyers failed to convince U.S. District Judge Beverly Martin, who turned them down late Wednesday. They said they will take their appeal to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today. Spivey is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 7 p.m. for the 1976 murder of an off-duty Columbus police officer.

Spivey's lawyers wrote in court documents that his rights to a fair hearing before the clemency panel had been compromised. They want three members -- Chairman Walter Ray, Bobby Whitworth and Gene Walker -- removed while investigations are conducted into the various allegations against them. Walker is named in a sexual harassment lawsuit, but the court filing focused primarily on a criminal investigation of Whitworth and Ray.

The state attorney general's office is investigating whether Ray and Whitworth lobbied on behalf of a private security firm. They also have been singled out for helping a state senator indicted two weeks ago for requesting that an inmate be moved after he received campaign contributions from the prisoner's family. Spivey's lawyers also say Ray cannot be objective because he allegedly said the board would never grant clemency in a death penalty case as long as he is chairman, a claim Ray denied in court. His lawyers wrote that Spivey "believes that he will be denied these basic and minimal due process protections and equal protection of the law because he will not have an opportunity to present his case to a fair, neutral and detached decision-making body, as three of the Board members are tainted by a conflict of interest."

Spivey, 62, was sentenced to die for killing police Officer Billy Watson, who had surprised Spivey as he was holding up a bar in Columbus. Just five hours before he shot Watson, Spivey murdered Charles McCook in Macon in a brawl over $20. Spivey's 25 years on death row have not been quiet. Last March, Spivey drew national attention when he agreed to have his then-scheduled execution videotaped to be used in efforts to abolish the electric chair, which the Georgia Supreme Court found to be unconstitutional in October. Spivey also spent a good bit of time in isolation because he provided authorities with information against fellow inmates. He was admitted into Mensa, an organization of people who test above average on IQ.

News Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution - January 16, 2002

"Cop Killer Slated to be Executed," by Rhonda Cook.

A convicted cop killer has been scheduled to be the fifth man in Georgia to die by lethal injection since the method was adopted here in late October. Muscogee County Chief Judge Kenneth Followill signed the warrant Tuesday ordering the execution of Ronald Keith Spivey, 62, between Jan. 24 and Jan. 31 and the Department of Corrections set the specific time for Spivey's death at 7 p.m. Jan. 24. Only five men have been on death row longer than Spivey, imprisoned and condemned for 24 years.

His path to death row began late Dec. 27, 1976, when he killed Charles McCook in a Macon pool hall brawl over $20. Spivey then drove to Columbus and to the Final Approach Lounge at Peachtree Mall. Spivey fatally shot Bill Watson in the head and chest after the off-duty police officer came into the bar to investigate why its door was open beyond the 2 a.m. closing time. The gun shots drew Welton Emmit Allen, the 21-year-old manager of the nearby Briar Rabbit restaurant, into the lounge. Spivey shot Allen five times. Allen survived by playing dead. From the parking lot, Spivey continued shooting and wounded another person. Spivey saw the wounded Allen duck into the Briar Rabbit and fired several more times through a window, hitting an employee of that restaurant, who also survived. Spivey then ordered college professor and part-time bar waitress Mary Jane Davidson to drive him to Alabama. He was captured two miles south of Wedowee, Ala., just before daybreak. Spivey had $360 in cash believed to have come from the bar, along with two guns --- a .38-caliber revolver and a .357 Smith & Wesson that had Watson's name and badge number 197 engraved on the butt.

Spivey was sentenced to life in prison for McCook's murder. He was tried twice for killing Watson. The first conviction in 1977 was thrown out because he was "compelled to be a witness against himself in a psychological exam," court records said. In 1983, a second Muscogee jury convicted Spivey of murder, armed robbery and kidnapping.

CNNfyi.com

"Death Penalty by Electrocution on Trial; Georgia Seeks to Resolve Constitutionality of Electric Chair."

(March 7, 2001) - Summary: The use of the electric chair in court-mandated criminal executions will be on trial in Georgia, thanks to a Tuesday ruling from the state's highest court. The Georgia Supreme Court granted a stay of execution to a convicted killer hours before his scheduled execution, saying it wanted to address whether the use of the electric chair violated the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

ATLANTA, Georgia - Georgia's high court wants to address whether death in the electric chair violates the Constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The action came Tuesday as the court granted a stay of execution to a police officer's killer just hours before he was scheduled to die in the electric chair.

"Ronald Keith Spivey has been granted a stay of execution by the Georgia Supreme Court pending a later decision on the constitutionality of electrocution as a form of capital punishment," Georgia's Department of Corrections said in a statement. Spivey, 61, was scheduled to be electrocuted at 7 p.m. at a state prison in Jackson, Georgia, about 50 miles south of Atlanta. He was sentenced to die for the murder of police officer Billy Watson in Columbus, Georgia, in 1976. Spivey is also serving a life term for killing Charles McCook of Macon, Georgia.

The reprieve marked the second time in less than a year that Georgia's Supreme Court has halted a scheduled execution. Last August the court granted an indefinite stay to a mentally ill prisoner who had been scheduled to die for the murder of a teen-age girl. Georgia has not held an execution since 1998. Death penalty opponents have argued that Spivey's electrocution should be halted because it violated the U.S. Constitution's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.

Georgia is one of the few states that still relies on electrocution as its main method of execution. Last year it abolished the use of the electric chair for capital crimes committed after May 1, 2000, substituting lethal injections. Use of the electric chair in the state has been challenged in lower courts in Georgia and has been declared unconstitutional by two judges in urban Fulton County. Writing in the high court's majority opinion, Justice Leah J. Sears noted, "electrocution offends the evolving standards of decency that characterize a mature, civilized society."

Thomas Dunn, Spivey's lawyer, said it would have been wrong for the Georgia Supreme Court to allow the execution to proceed without first considering these cases. In a motion filed with the court, Dunn said Spivey's execution must be postponed so "this significant moral, constitutional and legal issue can be resolved without the distorting effects of an imminent execution." Before the stay was granted, Spivey had agreed to have his execution videotaped for use in legal challenges to electrocution.

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.

National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty

Ronald Spivey - Scheduled Execution Date and Time: 1/24/02 7:00 PM EST.

ABOLISH Archives

U R G E N T A C T I O N A P P E A L - 1 March 2001 - USA (Georgia): Ronald Keith Spivey, aged 61.

Ronald Spivey is scheduled to be executed in Georgia's electric chair on, or within seven days of 6 March 2001. Sentenced to death in 1977 for the murder of Billy Watson, he has been on death row for over 23 years.

Billy Watson, an off-duty police officer, was shot during a robbery at a bar in Columbus, Muscogee County, in 1976. Ronald Spivey was also convicted in separate proceedings of killing another man in a bar in Macon, Bibbs County, a few hours earlier. The Bibb County conviction was later overturned by a federal court because it relied on evidence acquired in violation of Ronald Spivey's constitutional rights.

In 1982, a federal court granted Spivey a retrial for the Watson murder, at which he was again sentenced to death. At the 1983 retrial, the Muscogee County prosecutor urged the jury to vote for a death sentence. Referring to the Bibb County conviction, the prosecutor argued that a 'verdict of life imprisonment will not add one day of punishment to this man. Bear that in mind. Bear that in mind. And if that is not a slap on the wrist... then what is it? What is it? It is literally two lives, two human lives for the price of one because a person only has one life. If he is sentenced to life imprisonment on the first murder and you give him life on the second, is that appropriate punishment?... Why do we even go through the effort of trying this case...?'

When the federal US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld Ronald Spivey's death sentence in 2000, one of the three judges dissented, saying that he should receive a new sentencing: 'Spivey was prejudiced here because the prosecutor presented the jury with a false choice between imposing death and imposing no punishment. Not only did the jury consider a conviction that has since been vacated, but the prosecutor presented the vacated life sentence not simply as a factor to consider, but as the decisive factor in urging the jury to recommend a death sentence.'

Ronald Spivey suffered a childhood of emotional and physical abuse and has a history of psychiatric problems. As a child, he was allegedly abused by his father, who would beat him, lock him in cupboards, and threaten to kill him. The boy fled home on numerous occasions, only to be returned by the authorities. At school, it was recognized that he had severe emotional problems, and he began receiving mental health treatment at the age of 12. However, his father frequently prevented him from receiving the psychiatric care he needed, apparently believing that beating was a more appropriate course of action.

Ronald Spivey has written: 'America is killing the economically deprived, those of the lower socioeconomic strata, killing the insane, killing the retarded, killing illiterates, killing the emotionally crippled, killing the socially disenfranchised and the politically powerless of our society, killing those so criminally abused as children that they never had a chance to develop normally to a well-balanced human being'.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The USA has executed 697 men and women since resuming judicial killing in 1977, frequently violating international standards of justice and decency in its pursuit of death sentences (see Amnesty International News Release, USA: Flouting world trends, violating international standards - 700th execution imminent, AMR 51/031/2001, 1 March 2001).

Georgia accounts for 22 of these executions, the most recent being in June 1998. The method of execution is electrocution for those sentenced to death for murders committed before 1 May 2000, and lethal injection for those convicted of murders committed after that date. The constitutionality of execution in Georgia's electric chair continues to be challenged in appeal cases, on the grounds that it violates the constitutional prohibition on cruel or unusual punishments. In Georgia, the power to grant clemency to inmates facing execution rests solely with the state Board of Pardons and Paroles. It has five members, appointed for renewable seven-year terms by the Governor.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases. It is a symptom of a culture of violence, not a solution to it. There is unprecedented national concern about the reliability and fairness of the capital justice system in the USA, particularly since the Governor of Illinois suspended executions in his state last year because of its record of wrongful convictions in capital cases.

Augusta Chronicle

"Stick It To Him - March 12, 2001 - Augusta Chronicle Editorial Staff

The Georgia Supreme Court spared the life of cop-killer Ronald Keith Spivey last week, at least for a little while, to give justices time to decide whether electrocution is a cruel and unusual punishment. But it was really a slick maneuver on the part of Spivey's attorneys that won the killer a little more time. Eventually, he'll have to sent on to his maker, whether by electric chair or lethal injection. Spivey's public defenders had gotten some judges from around the state to order the videotaping of Spivey's execution, which was planned for Tuesday. But the Supreme Court didn't want to have any part of a videotape of an execution, which would become a public document and be seen around the world. Instead, they delayed the execution.

Here's the answer: Stick a needle in Spivey's arm and put him to sleep - permanently. He killed two people, one of them a Columbus police officer in 1976. His rap sheet before that wasn't so innocuous either. The Supreme Court, if it's ambivalent about electrocution, should order all electrocutions be converted to death by injection. Get on with it.

Kort E. Patterson (NRA)

"Disputing the Claims of a Killer," by Kort E Patterson.

In its June issue, Integra printed an outrageous and deceitful attack on the NRA by Ronald Spivey, a confessed psychotic multiple murderer on death row. The editor goes on at length how this unfortunate victim of mental illness and an uncaring world has taken responsibility for his crimes. But in his article, Spivey labors to off load his personal responsibility onto the stress of his external life-style problems, his willful abuse of alcohol and drugs, and the right of citizens to possess firearms. Rather than a "reasoned" discussion of firearm ownership, Spivey's article is a poorly disguised attempt to reinterpret the heinous crimes he committed, and portray himself as the victim rather than the perpetrator.

If any part of the misinformation in Spivey's article were true, then Switzerland would have the highest crime rates in the world. While Spivey falsely attempts to blame access to firearms for his crimes, in Switzerland nearly all citizens possess firearms. Somehow, the heavily armed Swiss manage to resist the murderous impulses that are claimed to accompany firearm ownership, and have almost no firearm involved crime. Switzerland doesn't maintain a standing army for defense, considering it the duty of all citizens to rise to the defense of the country in an emergency. To this end, all men between 21 and 45 are required to keep at least a fully automatic assault weapon within easy access in their homes. Citizens are encouraged to privately purchase additional firearms for sport and home defense, and to supplement those available from the government. Those with religious or moral objections to possessing firearms are obliged to file for an exemption.

Private citizens who are so inclined can lawfully possess any weapon up to antiaircraft guns. The only restriction on the more potentially destructive weapons is that some critical part of their firing mechanism be stored separately from the main weapon when not in use. The Swiss government itself sells surplus or obsolete military weapons to its citizens. Rather than licensing guns and owners, the Swiss assume that all citizens possess multiple firearms. And despite one of the highest per capita rates of firearm ownership in the world, Switzerland has almost no firearm related crime. The Swiss do, however, have a deep and abiding belief in effective self defense at both the national and personal levels. The long history of Swiss freedom and armed neutrality hasn't been accidental good fortune. The Swiss policy of practiced readiness to defend themselves against any aggressor has succeeded in discouraging every would be world conqueror of this century who brutally enslaved its passively neutral neighbors. By being totally prepared to defend their borders from any aggressors, the Swiss have avoided having to pay the cost of proving themselves. And on a personal level, criminals find the aggressive self defense of the Swiss less attractive than the forced passivity of potential victims in America and other countries that restrict and/or discourage their citizen's right of self defense.

Spivey passionately advocates outlawing machine guns and assault weapons, falsely implying that the NRA has been promoting their possession and misuse. Contrary to the media and government's abuse of the term, assault weapons, like machine guns, are capable of fully automatic fire. The truth is that machine guns and assault weapons have been illegal in America since the 1930's under legislation sponsored by the NRA. Clinton's much publicized "assault weapon ban" was actually targeted at semiautomatic firearms that resemble military weapons - firearms which the FBI's own uniform crime reports show are actually used in a statistically insignificant less than 0.3% (that's less than 3/10ths of 1 percent) of firearm related crimes.

Contrary to his assertions that "...they can't do as much damage without a firearm as they can with one", none of the most prolific murderers in history used firearms as their primary method of killing. Even the Nazis found shooting people too slow and expensive, and were forced to develop other methods to commit the bulk of their mass murders. Recent events have repeatedly proven that fertilizer, gasoline, and other common household chemicals are far more lethal than gun powder. On the other hand, firearms, and in particular handguns, are the tools of choice for those obliged to defend themselves and their property from thieves and murderers. Handguns are especially appropriate self defense weapons for older women living alone.

Nor is Spivey's claim that his body count was solely due to his access to a firearm credible. Murderers armed with knives, clubs, fertilizer, chain saws, metal pipes, hammers, scissors, screw drivers, automobiles, common garden implements - and yes, rocks - have repeated proven that it is entirely possible to kill multiple innocent and unsuspecting victims without the use of a firearm. Psychotics have in the past shown exceptional creativity in the use of common objects to cause bodily harm. Since Spivey possesses an Intertel qualified brain, it is entirely reasonable to assume he would have been able to find an alternative means of killing his victims if he hadn't had access to a firearm.

Spivey states that his violence was caused by his psychotic rage. He further claims that his psychotic rage was caused by external life pressures and stress. His psychotic rage was not caused by access to a firearm. Spivey wants to believe that the cause of his multiple murders was his access to lethal capability. The means by which any one of us could kill or maim those around us are constantly at hand. Murders have been committed with every conceivable artifact of human existence. It is not access but intent that causes violence. The outcome would not have been materially different for his victims or society if Spivey had been obliged to act out his psychotic rage with a machete, his car, or gasoline filled whiskey bottles instead of a firearm.

Clearing away all the double talk, Spivey tries to make the case that because he failed in every way as a human being, we as functional individuals shouldn't have rights and liberty. More specifically, Spivey tries to make the point that because a diagnosed psychotic who should never have been allowed to interact with unsuspecting normal individuals couldn't handle real life, functional individuals should no longer be "allowed" our basic rights of self defense and individual freedom. My rights and freedoms did not cause Spivey's mental illness, his life-style problems, or his failures as a human being. Eliminating my rights and freedoms would not in any way "cure" Spivey's mental illness or protect him from the effects of his faulty life-style choices. Eliminating my rights and freedoms would, however, have a substantial negative effect on me.

Spivey is right in that there shouldn't have been any way for him to gain access to a firearm. Nor should he have been allowed access to an automobile, toxic chemicals, sharp objects, blunt instruments, or anything else that he could use to harm others. In short, he should have been removed from society until he no longer posed a threat to those around him. Spivey repeatedly demonstrated his inability to function in society. Judges and doctors repeatedly returned Spivey to an unsuspecting general public while actively conspiring to deny his future victims knowledge of his true nature.

Spivey publicly proclaims he is a member of the NRA. If Spivey is indeed a member of the NRA, he has to be fully aware he is attempting to deceive the public, because the well documented facts that disprove all of his claims have been repeatedly printed in Government and NRA publications - even if the main stream media chooses to ignore the truth. One of the facts Spivey fails to mention is that over 1 million Americans each year successfully defend themselves, their loved ones, and their property through the lawful use of their privately owned firearms. Most of the time, it is not even necessary to discharge the firearm. Studies prove that in the real world the rest of us are obliged to live in, firearms save far more lives than they "cost". Finding this aspect inconvenient to his position, Spivey ignores these well documented facts.

Spivey advocates people sue the NRA in order to destroy the organization and eliminate its lawful efforts to protect the rights of Americans as guaranteed by the Constitution and Bill of Rights. With his advocacy of harm to the NRA and its members, Spivey makes it personal. I'm a member of the NRA, and therefore one of Spivey's intended victims. I haven't actually fired a gun for over a decade (and then it was a replica of a Civil War era musket), but I contribute to the NRA in support of their uncompromising defense of liberty. Since my resource base has constricted I've stopped contributing to the ACLU and send most of what little I can spare to the NRA. History indicates that if we lose our right and ability to physically resist the encroachments of an out of control government, paper warriors like the ACLU will quickly become irrelevant anyway.

I have been an NRA member off and on for decades, and have found the NRA a consistent advocate of constitutional democracy, rational and effective justice, the rights of victims, and a supporter of basic law enforcement (the cop on the beat). Contrary to the gross distortions by Spivey and the popular media, the organization that I know well has never failed to maintain the moral and ethical high ground. Take a close look at what the NRA actually says and does, and you will find it is one of the very few untarnished white knights in American politics. Unfortunately, the press prefers to publicize fabrications and distortions about the NRA spread by self serving proven mental defectives like Spivey, instead of accurately reporting the eminently respectable reality of a prestigious organization of over 3 million Americans.

George Bush's highly publicized resignation from the NRA is hardly a valid measure of the NRA. George Bush has a history of betraying just causes at critical times. He first supported women's rights, and then changed sides and worked hard to eliminate the rights of women to control their own bodies. He promised no new taxes, and then betrayed us all by raising taxes. He started a war against Sadam Hussein, and then at the 100th hour managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. (Because of Bush, we will have to fight Iraq again within the next 10 years, and next time Sadam's followers will be far more motivated and numerous, and our casualties will be far heavier. Ask the Kurds, Shiites, and Iraqi moderates if George Bush is an honorable man. Oh, I'm sorry, you can't - they're all dead because Bush helped keep Sadam in power, and then refused to intervene while Sadam viciously butchered men, women and children with impunity.) And now we are supposed to be surprised that Bush has abandoned the defense of liberty. If anything, Bush's politically motivated departure serves as further confirmation of the validity of the cause he is currently attempting to betray.

But back to Spivey. Even now, Spivey refuses to recognize that he was solely and personally responsible for his actions. No inanimate objects, no substances, no other people, nothing but his own internal mental processes caused him to attempt to murder 5 total strangers. In Oregon, divorces out number marriages, and an estimated 80% of businesses fail in their first year. Alcohol and drugs are generally available to anyone who seeks them out. These factors are a recurrent experience for a significant percentage of the population and do not cause normal individuals to "snap" and murder total strangers. The single critical variable in the lethal equation is Spivey and his mental defects.

Even after 18 years to think about it, Spivey refuses to recognize that the lethal defects are in his basic makeup, and his inability or unwillingness to control his behavior. Instead he lashes out in self serving outrage at the lawful right of normal citizens to possess firearms. He doesn't question that he was repeatedly returned to the general population while he continued to pose a threat to those around him. At no point does he even consider that the public has a right to be protected from violent and dangerous defectives like him. No where does Spivey consider that he personally knew from when he was as young as 11 that he was prone to psychotic rages, and posed a clear and present danger to those around him. And yet he proceeded to willfully place himself in situations that would trigger his psychotic rages.

From his own description of his lifetime of frustrating society's ineffective efforts to alter or control his behavior, it would seem obvious that Spivey would have snapped eventually regardless of his access to a firearm. Because of misplaced sympathy for Spivey, the system protected him from the victims of his earlier crimes, and denied his later victims any knowledge of the violent psychotic loose among them. By his own account, the system had multiple opportunities to protect the innocent, but instead chose to repeatedly release Spivey back into the general public until he finally committed atrocities that couldn't be ignored. A case could be made that the real failure was in a system that allowed such a manifestly defective specimen as Spivey to survive long enough to deprive society of 2 far more valuable individuals. Perhaps the real on going crime is that society continues to value and support at great expense Spivey's continued life, while his victims who contributed far more to society while living than Spivey ever will, continue to be dead.

Far from accepting personal responsibility for his reprehensible acts, Spivey implies that going berserk is somehow a normal and reasonable reaction to divorce and business failure. In Spivey's perverted logic, it was society's failure to restrain the physical effects of his rage when he could not, that caused the tragedy. In Spivey's self serving version of reality, if only society had limited his world to rocks, he wouldn't have been able to commit his murders. Spivey has no concept of the true reality of his actions. He is still trying to portray himself as the victim. Spivey proposes instead that the whole world should have been turned into a safe institution for him to harmlessly bounce off the padded walls. In Spivey's mind, because he can't be trusted with sharp objects, we must all be limited to dull plastic scissors. I resent the implication that I and the rest of the functional world, are really only here as therapy objects for the defective and broken minority. I reject the concept that I must live inside his institution because he is incapable of living in the real world.

Spivey's claims of a tortured life filled with moral anguish offered up in a bid for sympathy must also be framed in the proper context. I'd bet either one of his murdered victims would gladly trade places with him. If you doubt that a life of feeling guilty on "death row" is substantially preferable to the grave, why hasn't Spivey willingly joined his victims in the cold earth during the long years since he so violently ended their lives? To spend 18 years on death row, Spivey has to have appealed his death sentence - continuing his lifelong pattern of resisting society's efforts to either fix him or cut its losses and rid itself of him.

I would further wager that at least the 25% of the world population currently facing eminent death from starvation, disease, and/or war, struggling just to stay alive one more day, would gladly trade places with Spivey. In our perverse "justice system", Spivey's standard of living and life expectancy on "death row" is substantially superior to the brutal reality experienced by at least a billion non-murderers in the third world. Put another way, the ongoing cost of maintaining Spivey alive in an expensive high security prison would probably support several hundred third world children who are now doomed to a painful lingering death.

And now, having been allowed to outlive his first victims by 18+ years, Spivey has decided to murder freedom itself! Unable to convince his jailers to set him free yet again, he seeks to enclose the rest of us within the walls of his prison, and thereby take from us the liberty we have taken from him. Spivey has already committed sufficient atrocities to justify his execution. There is no doubt as to his guilt. There isn't any possibility of "rehabilitation". Why is this man still alive to wrongfully attack the NRA after being sentenced to die 18 years ago? Are the multiple people he murdered 18+ years ago any less dead today? Is there no limit to the damage this man will be allowed to cause before his accumulating victims can rightfully demand NO MORE!

But no, justice will not triumph this day, and Spivey will carve yet more notches in the iron bars that fail to contain his malevolence. From the parasitic security of his publicly supported cell, this admitted failure of a human being is reaching out in an overt attempt to harm me and the other wholly innocent members of the NRA. He has subverted society's failure to follow through on his death sentence into license to rack up even more victims. Having avoided any real measure of justice for his previous multiple murders, Spivey is now aiming for a body count in the millions by attacking the very foundations of our liberty.

ABOLISH Archives

GEORGIA----debate to videotape execution:

As Georgia prepared today for its 1st execution in almost 3 years, legal wrangling continued over whether the electrocution will be videotaped. That debate was part of a flurry of court actions leading up to the final hours before condemned cop killer Ronald Spivey was scheduled to die in the electric chair at 7 p.m.

As opponents of the death penalty continued their efforts to videotape the final moments of Spivey's life, state prison officials were seeking guidance after conflicting court orders on taping the execution. Spivey's pending execution for the 1976 murder of a Columbus police officer is unique because he has consented to having it videotaped as evidence in legal challenges to use of the electric chair. It has attracted national media attention, and various broadcast outlets have offered to do the taping.

A large man carrying 346 pounds on a 6-foot-5 frame, Spivey has signed an affidavit authorizing an autopsy by a private pathologist. "I hope we'll finally get the Georgia Supreme Court to say, 'It's cruel and unusual,'" said Michael Mears, director of the state Multi-County Public Defender's Office, which provides legal assistance in death penalty cases. "They keep saying the evidence is not sufficient [to rule electrocution is unconstitutional]. I don't know what we can do other than this. The Supreme Court has pushed us into it."

If Spivey's execution is videotaped, it will be the 1st known recording of an electrocution in the United States. The only known execution to have been videotaped was in California in 1992, shortly before the state replaced the gas chamber with lethal injection as the means of execution. The California tape was destroyed without ever having been made public.

Though Spivey was convicted of murdering 2 men, he was sentenced to die for the death of police Officer Billy Watson. Spivey was sentenced to life in prison for killing Charles McCook of Macon 5 hours earlier. The 61-year-old murderer has exhausted traditional appeals. He is now asking the state Board of Pardons and Paroles, in a hearing today and in separate court filings, to postpone his execution until the Georgia Supreme Court resolves the videotaping dispute.

In a coordinated effort, trial court motions were filed last week in pending death penalty cases and appeals of death sentences all over the state. The hope of anti-death penalty forces was that at least one judge would approve the taping, which could eventually lead the state Supreme Court to decide the issue. The state's highest court had ruled it did not have enough evidence to determine whether electrocution is cruel and unusual punishment. Attorneys argue the tapes would provide that evidence.

At least three judges have denied requests to videotape the electrocution, despite affidavits from Spivey approving the recording. The taping was approved, with varying degrees of restrictions, by 4 other courts.

One judge simply approved the taping and 3 judges ruled the execution could be recorded with restrictions, including locking away the tape with no copies distributed and no one other than Spivey being recorded. "While justice may be blind, it is not deaf, especially to the loudly resonating footsteps of evolving standards expressed by our appellate courts and legislature on this issue," DeKalb County Judge John Allen wrote in his order authorizing the videotaping. "The evidence sought has not been reasonably available prior to now in that there was not a prior approval of a death penalty defendant who had given permission to have his electrocution videotaped. . . . It is with great trepidation that this court treads in these uncharted waters."

As in the videotaped California execution, some death penalty opponents contend recording an electrocution would lead to an end to the practice in Georgia, 1 of 3 states that use the electric chair. Attorneys in Spivey's case insist this is not an attempt to keep him alive. "It's not a ploy that would do Spivey any good," said Stephen Bright, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights.

Videotaping the electrocution, Bright said, might push the state to change its method of execution. "Electrocution is a particularly grotesque way of putting people to death," he said.

Some people want the execution carried out regardless of the method used. "Nothing's going to change my opinion as to what needs to be done to him," said Clyde McCook, brother of one of Spivey's victims. "They need to execute him. I'll be glad when it's over."

**********

RONALD KEITH SPIVEY
Born: Nov. 11, 1939
Height: 6 feet, 5 inches
Weight: 346 pounds

Criminal History:

1961, Bibb County - 6 counts of forgery; sentenced to 6 months in jail and 3 years of probation.

1963, Bibb County - robbery by force; sentenced to 2 years in prison and 2 years of probation.

1965, Dougherty County - armed robbery, escape and car theft; sentenced to 3 years.

1976, Bibb County - robbery, pointing a pistol at another, driving under the influence, murder (Charles McCook); sentenced to life in prison. Muscogee County - murder (police officer Billy Watson), kidnapping (2 counts), armed robbery (2 counts), aggravated assault (2 counts); sentenced to death, life in prison (2 counts), 20 years and 10 years (2 counts).

(source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution)