Jill Nolin | The Valdosta Daily TimesPhil Holladay with King and Spalding and Gerald King and Victoria Calvert with the Federal Defender Program in Atlanta discuss Robert Earl Butts Jr.' petition for clemency before the Wednesday hearing starts. 

ATLANTA — Clemency was denied Thursday for an inmate whose execution had been delayed only the day before.

A state panel had decided Wednesday to stay the execution of a Baldwin County man convicted of killing another man during a 1996 carjacking.

After reviewing the case again Thursday, the state Board of Pardons and Paroles voted to deny clemency for Robert Earl Butts Jr., according to state officials

The stay halted the execution of Butts, who was scheduled to die by lethal injection Thursday evening. The state Board of Pardons and Paroles could have spent up to three months considering whether to spare Butts’ life.

“Knowing the gravity of its decision, the board extended deliberations in order to consider supplemental information submitted during the meeting that members had not previously reviewed,” Steve Hayes, board spokesperson, said in a statement. “Completing that process, the board voted to deny clemency.”

It was unclear Thursday afternoon if Butts would be executed Thursday evening as originally scheduled. The board’s denial of commutation of death sentence document issued Thursday states that Butts “shall be executed during a certain period of time commencing at noon on the third day of May 2018 and ending at noon on the 10th day of May 2018.”

Attorneys for Butts revealed this week in a petition for clemency that a witness who claimed at trial that Butts told him he was the triggerman now says he lied in an attempt to help Butts’ co-defendant, Marion Wilson, who also sits on death row for the murder of 24-year-old Donovan Parks.

“He straight up asked me to do it for his kid, and I agreed,” the petition claims Horace May said of Wilson, whose girlfriend was pregnant at the time. May was incarcerated with both defendants as they awaited trial.

It was likely one of the key arguments made Wednesday during a closed-door meeting of the board, which usually closes clemency hearings to the public. The board has the authority to reduce his death sentence to life in prison with or without the possibility of parole.

Butts and Wilson, who were accused at trial of belonging to the Folk Nation gang, targeted Parks after standing behind him in the checkout line at the Milledgeville Walmart, where Parks was buying cat food. Butts had once worked with Parks at a fast-food restaurant.

The pair followed him out to the parking lot and asked for a ride. They later pulled out a sawed-off shotgun and demanded that Parks, who worked as a corrections officer, stop the car. Parks was then shot in the back of his head on the side of the road.

When Butts and Wilson couldn’t sell Parks’ Acura for parts in Atlanta, they set the car ablaze in Macon.

Butts denied his involvement when caught two decades ago because he says he thought it was “wrong to snitch.” Now, the 40-year-old admits he played a role – although he points to Wilson as the shooter.

“I think about Mr. Parks and that night every single day, going over it again and again in my mind,” Butts wrote, according to a statement included in his petition.

“There’s no excuse for what I did, and I’m tremendously sorry for what happened to Mr. Parks,” he added.

District Attorney Stephen Bradley with the Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit said Wednesday the changing testimony should make no difference.

“Our position from day one with this case is it doesn’t matter who pulled the trigger because we’ll never know for certain,” Bradley said.

“They’re each claiming it’s the other one, but all we know for certain is that these are the two people responsible for Donovan Parks’ death,” he said. “And the jury treated them the same and we think they ought to be treated the same because that’s what follows the credible evidence.”

Parks’ father, brother and other family members were among those who implored the board to uphold Butts’ death sentence. They did not speak to the media Wednesday.

“The family is exhausted from the long wait,” Bradley said of the 22 years that have passed.

Butts was represented Wednesday by Phil Holladay with King and Spalding and Gerald King and Victoria Calvert with the Federal Defender Program in Atlanta. His attorneys declined to comment Wednesday through a board spokesman.

Butts’ mother – who was painted as an absentee parent who spent her son’s childhood drunk and high – was there to beg the board to show mercy. His siblings, uncles and pastor were also there.

Butts’ attorneys argued the board should consider their client’s difficult childhood, as well as his age when the crime was committed. He was 18 years old.

They also argued there’s been a shift away from death sentences in Georgia. They claimed that a jury would be far less inclined to sentence Butts to death for the same crime – which involved one murder victim and one aggravating factor – if committed today.