Execution scheduled for oldest Georgia death row inmate

ATLANTA (AP) — The state of Georgia plans to execute its oldest death row inmate next month.

Attorney General Sam Olens' office said in a news release Wednesday that 72-year-old Brandon Astor Jones is scheduled for execution on Feb. 2. Jones was convicted in the 1979 killing of Cobb County convenience store manager Roger Tackett.

A federal judge later granted Jones a new sentencing hearing because jurors had improperly been allowed to bring a Bible into the deliberation room. Jones was resentenced to death in 1997.

The U.S. Supreme Court in October rejected an appeal from Jones. A divided Georgia Supreme Court and the federal appeals court in Atlanta had previously upheld his death sentence.

Another man convicted in the killing, Van Roosevelt Solomon, was executed in 1985.