The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org. May 17, 2017 Georgia Executes Prisoner After SCOTUS Denies Firing Squad Request ------------------------------------------------------------------ In more news from Georgia, prison officials killed 45-year-old death row prisoner J.W. Ledford with a lethal dose of the barbiturate pentobarbital early Wednesday, after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the method of the execution. Lawyers argued there was a high risk the injection would not render Ledford fully unconscious, exposing him to an unconstitutionally cruel and unusual death. The high court rejected that motion and denied Ledford's request to be executed by firing squad. .