Parole board sets clemency hearing for condemned Georgia man

ATLANTA - Georgia's parole board has scheduled a hearing to weigh arguments for and against clemency for a man convicted of killing his ex-wife and her boyfriend.

Donnie Cleveland Lance, 66, is scheduled to be put to death Jan. 29. He was convicted and sentenced to die for the November 1997 killings of Sabrina “Joy” Lance and Dwight “Butch” Wood Jr. in Jackson County, about 60 miles northeast of Atlanta.

The State Board of Pardons and Paroles has scheduled a closed-door clemency hearing for Lance on Jan. 28. The parole board is the only authority in Georgia that can commute a death sentence.

Lance would be the first person executed in Georgia this year. Jimmy Fletcher Meders was scheduled for lethal injection Jan. 16, but the parole board commuted his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole just hours before the execution was scheduled o happen.