Supreme Court Throws-Out Death Sentence for White-Hating Black Killer
13WMAZ
March 31, 2014
Georgia’s Supreme Court has thrown out the conviction and death sentence for a man convicted of killing a Macon County bank vice president in 1999.
The court ruled that Artemus Rick Walker was probably incompetent to stand trial due to mental illness.
They said the lawyer who represented him at his 2002 murder trial failed to present evidence about his mental illness that might have prevented the conviction.
On May 12, 1999, the court’s summary said Walker stabbed Lynwood Ray Gresham 12 times, in the chest and back, outside Gresham’s home. Walker hired a second man to help him rob and kill a “rich” man, the summary said. After the pair rode their bikes to Gresham’s home, the second man refused to stab Gresham himself.
Friday’s ruling upheld a 2009 ruling in Butts County, where the state’s death row is located.
That court heard testimony about Walker’s mental state, including:
- Witnesses said “In his late teens, Walker slipped into increasingly psychotic-like behavior.
- “He became obsessed with religion, would fast for 40 days at a time, slipping notes under the door to signal when he needed honey, milk or water, which is all he consumed.”
- “Walker had grand plans for founding his own “big ministry” named “King of Kings,” and he began wearing a robe to church and carrying a tall wooden staff.”
- One woman who went to his church said Walker “stalked her and told her she had been appointed by God to be his wife.”
- The bishop of his church said Walker interrupted a service to tell the congregation “that he learned, directly from God, that I was a false pro[phet] and that my wife was the Witch of Hindu.”
This is the second time Walker’s case has come before the state’s highest court. In 2007, they upheld his conviction.
Here is the state Supreme Court summary of the case: