ATLANTA (AP) – Georgia’s highest court has declined to halt the execution of an inmate set for execution.

In a 5-2 decision, the Georgia Supreme Court rejected an appeal by John Wayne Conner, who is scheduled to be put to death Thursday evening by injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital at the state prison in Jackson.

Conner, who is now 60, was convicted of fatally beating his friend J.T. White during an argument after a night of drinking and smoking marijuana in January 1982.

The two dissenting justices said they would have let Conner appeal on the question of whether his execution more than 34 years after his sentencing amounts to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.

If carried out, the execution would be the sixth in Georgia this year and the most in a calendar year in the state since the death penalty was reinstated nationwide in 1976.