A Black disabled Georgia man who was convicted nearly three decades ago for murdering his ex-girlfriend, among other crimes, was executed on Wednesday despite evidence that he was intellectually disabled.

In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that it is unconstitutional to execute intellectually disabled people.

Despite evidence that Willie Pye, 59, is intellectually disabled, he was still scheduled for execution, which his lawyers claim is because his public defender during his trial three decades ago was insufficient in proving his disability to the jury.

Pye was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996 for the kidnapping, robbery, rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, Alicia Lynn Yarbrough, in November 1993. He was also sentenced to three terms of life imprisonment for kidnapping with bodily injury, armed robbery and rape, and 20 years imprisonment for burglary, according to court documents .

In late February, Spalding County Superior Court announced the scheduled date of Pyes lethal injection.

In the weeks leading up to the execution, attorneys representing Pye attempted to delay or halt his execution through a series of court filings, according to the Union-Bulletin . On Tuesday, they asked Georgias Board of Pardons and Parole to grant clemency and issue a life sentence instead, stating that Pyes public defender, Johnny Mostiler, during the trial effectively abandoned his post, leaving no one and nothing, to stand between his client and death.

Had defense counsel not abdicated his role, the jurors would have learned that Mr. Pye is intellectually disabled and has an IQ of 68, the lawyers wrote in a clemency application to the board. They also would have learned the challenges he faced from birthprofound poverty, neglect, constant violence and chaos in his family homeforeclosed the possibility of healthy development. This is precisely the kind of evidence that supports a life sentence verdict.

The board held a meeting a day before Pyes scheduled execution to receive information for or against clemency.

We just feel that there should be mercy granted. We have parole boards so that they have the opportunity to grant mercy when the law fails. And for Willie, the law has failed, Cathy Harmon-Christian, executive director of Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (GFADP), told HuffPost.

She continued: Were trying to stop it on the grounds that he is an intellectually disabled man, that there was tremendous racism and deprivation [in his life] [and] there are too many procedural errors and problems in the original trial and beyond.

GFADP delivered a petition, which received over 5,000 signatures, to the parole board on Tuesday in a last minute attempt to spare Pyes life. But the efforts werent enough to alter his death sentence.

Following the meeting Tuesday, the parole board decided not to grant clemency . In a last ditch effort on the day the execution, Pyes lawyers requested a stay, which was denied by both the Georgia Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court later that evening.

Pye appealed his death sentence multiple times in state and federal court, with his lawyers citing failures from Pyes trial attorney during his trial in the mid-1990s and, more recently, claims that the execution was a violation of an agreement for the state to temporarily halt executions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Witness testimonies and evidence presented in the mid-1990s trial led the jury to find that Pye and two others broke into the house of a man whom Yarbrough and her baby were living with at the time.

The three stole Yarbroughs ring and necklace, kidnapped her and drove off, leaving the baby behind. They pulled onto a dirt road, where Pye forced Yarbrough to lay on the ground face down and shot her three times.

Theres one thing that I fear more than anything else in this case, that if you give him life without parole, if he killed a woman on a dirt lonely, dirt road, that he loved, hell for sure kill a guard to get out, the prosecutor told the jury, according to court documents . He is going to be a danger to everybody around him until the day he is executed.

According to court documents, Pyes lawyers claimed that Mostiler failed to sufficiently investigate and present evidence of Pyes traumatic childhood and adolescence, mental health problems and low intellectual functioning during the trial, as well as evidence to refute claims of possible future dangerousness that Pye poses. Billing records were also cited to show that Mostiler spent just over 150 hours preparing Pyes case..

Investigator Dewey Yarbrough, who assisted Mostiler in Pyes trial, testified that Mostiler did not obtain a psychological evaluation of Pye, according to court documents. But undisputed evidence was still provided to show that Pye has low intellectual functioning, bordering on intellectual disability. Dewey Yarbrough also said that he and Mostiler spent more time working on Pyes case than what is reflected in the billing records.

Dewey Yarbrough added that Pyes family members who were called to testify didnt put any effort forth on any of the contacts I made with them and were unhelpful in proving Pyes innocence. But some witnesses say they were called to testify for Pye on short notice, that they werent asked specific questions about Pye or his background, and were only told to say nice things about him, according to court documents.