Just one day before Georgia was scheduled to execute Willie James Hall, the state’s parole board commuted his sentence to life in prison without parole. During the hearing on Hall’s request for clemency, 6 of the jurors from his original trial testified that they would have given Hall life without parole if that sentence had been an option at his trial. In addition, the parole board noted that Hall had excellent behavior in prison and no criminal record before the murder. In 2001, a federal judge in Atlanta threw out Hall’s death sentence after finding that his lawyers did not prepare for the sentencing phase of the case, but the sentence was reinstated by a federal appeals court in Atlanta. (Atlanta Journal Constitution, January 26, 2004) See Clemency; Life Without Parole.