JACKSON, Ga. (AP) -- The execution of a Georgia prison inmate who has refused to challenge his death sentence was delayed on Tuesday, hours before he was set to be put to death for leading a violent robbery that left a woman and her 3-year-old daughter slain at their Paulding County home.
The lethal injection of Nicholas Cody Tate was postponed because he was planning to file a new round of appeals, said Lauren Kane, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Attorney General's office. He hadn't filed those yet and Kane said she was uncertain how long the execution would be pushed back.
Prison officials did not immediately comment at the state prison in Jackson late Tuesday.
Tate was set to be put to death by injection at 7 p.m. for the murders of Chrissie Williams and her daughter Katelyn.
His case presents a host of challenges to Georgia's legal system because it has moved rapidly through the death penalty process. That's because Tate has refused to challenge his conviction and death sentence through habeas corpus appeals, a process that could postpone his execution for years.
Tate's attorneys last week abandoned an attempt to have the condemned man's brother file an appeal on his behalf, and the pardons board on Monday rejected his request for clemency.
The likeliest route for Tate to halt his execution would be to file the habeas appeal, and his attorneys wouldn't immediately say whether he has done so. They have also declined to comment on why the 31-year-old won't let them file the appeals, but Tate's remarks at a 2009 hearing reveal his some of his thoughts.
"You caught me red-handed," he said during the hearing, when he waived his motion for a new trial. "None of my rights were violated ... I choose to waive any and all future appeals."
Friends and family of the victims said they were disappointed by the news. Kellie Young, Chrissie's older sister, said state attorneys contacted her late Tuesday with news that Tate was going to file an appeal.
"We're going to go through the courts again," she said. "I'm still in shock. I wanted closure. We just have to hope things turn out the way they should."
Court records detail how Nicholas Tate and two of his younger brothers, Dustin and Chad, purchased ammunition, duct tape and knives at a sporting goods store in December 2001 and then sought out Chrissie Williams' home because they believed she had a stash of drugs and cash.
The men knocked on the door and when Katelyn answered, chaos ensued. Tate ordered his brother Chad to silence the girl. Chad Tate unsuccessfully tried to strangle her with a telephone cord, and he then used Nicholas' knife to slit her throat. His other brother, Dustin, fled the house in fear. Before leaving, Nicholas Tate put a seat cushion over Chrissie's head and fired one shot through the pillow to kill her.
The brothers fled to Mississippi, kidnapping a 23-year-old woman from a gas station. They released her but kept the car as they sped toward Oklahoma. There, the brothers contacted their parents in Dallas, Ga. and soon negotiated their surrender to police.
Tate's two brothers were sentenced to life in prison for their roles in the violence. But Nicholas Tate, who prosecutors said was the ringleader, was sentenced to death after pleading guilty to murder charges in November 2005.
He filed a motion for a new trial a year later, but in 2009 had a change of heart. That's when he said he wanted to waive all future appeals, and the judge accepted his request, finding him to be coherent and articulate. Even so, his attorneys went ahead with a direct appeal, and the Georgia Supreme Court rejected their arguments.
Young said Tate deserved to die for his crimes.
"What they done was cruel. They went into her house, where she thought she was safe, and took her and her child," she said. "Only animals do that. What they did was devastating to her family."