After the debate on capital punishment and the Supreme Court’s moratorium on death penalty, Georgia may be the first state in the nation to execute an inmate. The US Supreme Court decided to uphold Kentucky’s lethal injection protocol, although there were voices claiming that lethal injection violates the ban on “cruel an unusual punishment” found in the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In the twentieth century, using this method meant to eliminate electrocution, hanging, firing squad, gas chamber, or decapitation.

William Earl Lynd is due to die by lethal injection at a prison in Jackson, central Georgia. He was charged with aggravated murder and kidnapping. In 1988 he shot his girlfriend Ginger Moore three times in the head and face, authorities said. After the crime, he buried his victim in a shallow grave near Tifon, south Georgia.

Opponents to the death penalty say they plan demonstrations in five cities in Georgia at the time of the execution, as well as outside the prison, Reuters reported. Campaigners who oppose this punishment say that capital punishment puts government on the same moral levels as criminals who have taken the life. They believe that there is no circumstance in any kind of situation in which capital punishment is a justified form of penalty.

"This is the crazy world of death penalty cases. The timelines go pretty much down to the wire," Laura Moye of Amnesty International was quoted as saying by Reuters. She added that a final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court might also be possible.

Lynd’s last wish was a meal of two pepper jack barbecue burgers with crispy onions, two baked potatoes with sour cream, bacon and cheese, and a large strawberry milkshake, prison authorities said.

Last year, 42 people were executed in America.