JACKSON, Ga. – The United States Supreme Court has ruled to let stand the death sentence imposed on Georgia death row inmate Donnie Cleveland Lance whose execution date has been set for Jan. 29, 2020 at 7 p.m.

New attorneys for Lance in his state post-conviction proceedings presented extensive evidence of cognitive impairments, which his original defense did not present. Four mental health experts agreed that Lance had brain damage in his frontal lobe, dementia, and borderline intellectual functioning at the time of the 1997 murders of his ex-wife, Sabrina “Joy” Lance and her lover, Dwight “Butch” Wood, Jr., but one, an expert for the state, disagreed about the level of impairment.

According to an AllOnGeorgia.com post, evidence provided by the State showed that Lance had a long history of abuse against Joy, including kidnapping, beatings with his fist, a belt, and a handgun, strangulation, electrocution or the threat of electrocution, the threat of burning with a flammable liquid and of death by a handgun and with a chainsaw, the firing of a handgun at or near her, and other forms of physical abuse.

If executed, Lance will be the first to be executed in the state this year, and the 53rd inmate put to death by lethal injection, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections.

Jimmy Fletcher Meders was scheduled for lethal injection earlier this month, but the State Board of Pardons and Paroles commuted his sentence hours before he was set to die.