The trial judge, without explanation, rejected the jury’s verdict and sentenced Mr. McNair to death. At the second and final sentencing, the jury returned a verdict of life imprisonment without possibility of parole. Please pray for these men and women. At his second trial, the court denied Mr. Whisenhant the $3500 it would have cost to hire expert psychiatrists, and the jury heard nothing about Mr. Whisenhant’s mental illness before he was re-convicted and sentenced to die. Mr. Grayson, who is Black, was executed on July 26, 2007, for the murder of a white woman. These correctional officers testified by affidavit that, in addition to never getting a single disciplinary infraction and serving as a trustworthy prison hallrunner, Mr. Land “saved lives” by providing information to correctional staff about potential conflicts or violent situations. A spokeswoman with the Alabama Department of Corrections told ABC News that the execution warrant did not run out until 11:59 p.m., meaning they had until then to carry out the execution once the court decided to lift the temporary stay. Mr. White’s case was never reviewed by a federal appellate court because his lawyers abandoned him without filing his appeal. Mr. Ray was convicted of capital murder in Dallas County based on testimony from his alleged accomplice, Marcus Owden, who was suffering from schizophrenia when he testified against Mr. Ray, according to recently disclosed records. The State’s case against Mr. Hallford for the murder of his daughter’s boyfriend depended on the testimony of his daughter, who had been charged, as a juvenile, with participating in the crime. Pray for salvation if unsaved, peace if saved, and that the innocent shall be revealed before they are executed. At trial, Houston County District Attorney Douglas Valeska relied on illegal evidence, inflammatory comments, and name-calling to secure a conviction and death sentence. Alabama Eviction Process Timeline. This story of extraordinary abuse and trauma was not told by Mr. Williams’s lawyers at trial, so that the jury and judge deciding his sentence did not have a complete picture of the background leading to this offense. Five states and the Federal Government have carried out executions. The victim’s family at sentencing also expressed its desire for Mr. White to be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. A federal court, however, reversed Mr. Wood’s death sentence because his inexperienced trial lawyer failed to uncover and present evidence of his intellectual impairments at trial. Woods, 44, was killed by lethal injection at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. He was the first person to be put to death by the state since Governor Robert Bentley took office. Woods is scheduled to be executed on Thursday, March 5, 2020. Texas accounted for three of the seven state executions in 2020; there was one each in Alabama, Georgia, Missouri and Tennessee, the report says. At his sentencing hearing, the judge found that Mr. Johnson was placed in numerous psychiatric hospitals throughout his childhood and was prescribed anti-psychotic medications. Two African Americans were removed because they were trained in psychology; but a white person who had taken psychology classes was allowed to serve on the jury. Mr. McNair appealed to the Alabama Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court, but neither court would review his claims. of Corrections. The Alabama Supreme Court on Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2020 ordered that 51-year-old Willie B. Smith III be put to death on Feb. 11 for the shotgun slaying of Sharma Ruth Johnson. Woods is scheduled to be executed on Thursday, March 5, 2020. Despite credible evidence proving that he had a psychotic spectrum disorder and a history of irrational behavior and delusions, the court was unconvinced that Mr. Eggers’s beliefs “are actually delusional” and granted his request to fire his lawyers, waive his appeals, and be executed. They also failed to present evidence about Mr. Mason’s past struggles with drug addiction, mental health problems, and that he was the victim of physical and sexual abuse. The State presented no eyewitness testimony at trial, and a witness testified that Mr. Payne’s accomplice had confessed to the killing. He shared a bedroom with his abusive and controlling mother until he was 16, and his mother often encouraged Tommy to join her in physically abusing his own father. Governor Kay Ivey has also refused to halt the execution of Nathaniel. Since then, Mr. Eggers believed that the Mexican Mafia and other outlaw groups, law enforcement agencies, and the government were conspiring to persecute him — following him from California as he fled to eight different states to evade them; checking into the psych ward to torment him when he was involuntarily committed for emergency psychiatric care; and even killing his father in retaliation for the killing of his former employer in Walker County, Alabama, in 2000. Mr. Johnson continued to represent himself after his conviction. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Smith was scheduled to be the first person executed by a state in 2021; the last time a state executed an inmate was July 8, 2020. The Eleventh Circuit held that Boles’s secretary’s testimony that he told her “that nig*** is going to fry” was not sufficient evidence “to support Jones’s allegation that Boles’s alleged racist attitude toward him affected Boles’s representation to the extent that Jones was denied the right to counsel guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment.” Jones v. Campbell, 436 F.3d 1285, 1304-05 (11 Cir. Despite Mr. Johnson’s history of mental illness, the judge allowed him to represent himself. Recent Alabama Executions 2020. At 18, Jason Williams learned that his mother was actually his aunt, who took him in after his biological mother left him with a babysitter and never came back for him. After the United States Supreme Court held in 2002 that the Constitution forbids the execution of mentally retarded people, an Alabama appeals court ordered a hearing to determine whether Mr. Wood is mentally retarded. That ruling was reversed by a federal appeals court on procedural grounds. Torrey McNabb was executed on October 19, even though the state and federal courts denied him a chance to present evidence in support of his claims that his capital trial was unfair. His was one of the lead cases challenging the propriety of Alabama’s lethal injection protocol. Two months later, on October 6, 1995, the elected Madison County trial judge sentenced Mr. Smith to death despite the jury’s life verdict. Willie B. Smith III, 51, is scheduled to be put to death Thursday at a south Alabama prison for the 1991 shotgun slaying of Sharma Ruth Johnson. Mr. Johnson was convicted of killing his infant son in 2005. The last execution took place in February 2020. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? Jimmy Dill’s case is an extraordinary one because he received such grossly inadequate legal assistance that neither the jury nor the courts had the evidence needed to make a reliable decision about whether Mr. Dill was guilty of capital murder or whether a death sentence was appropriate. Four state witnesses testified that Mr. Bradley was home eating dinner and watching TV with his stepchildren on the night of his stepdaughter’s disappearance. That ruling was reversed by the federal appeals court. No evidence of Mr. Jones’s mental illness or testimony from his family and friends was presented to persuade the jury that Mr. Jones should not be sentenced to death. The prosecutor felt confident in his race-based exclusions because Mr. Parker is white. Alabama’s first execution of 2020 comes with lots of controversy By Kate Smith | March 6, 2020 at 3:25 PM CST - Updated March 6 at 10:47 PM HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) - The man who sat on Alabama’s “death row” for 15 years but didn’t pull the trigger in the 2004 fatal officer-involved shootings in Birmingham was put to death Thursday night. There has been no state or federal postconviction review in the case because the state did not appoint an attorney to represent Mr. Johnson for those proceedings. Mr. Whisenhant came from an extremely troubled background. State experts testified that the crime would not have happened but for the drugs. But the appointed lawyers did not hire or consult with an expert in intellectual disability or obtain the recommended brain scans. 24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events. His execution, carried out after 27 years spent isolated and condemned to die, punctuated by periods of reprieve, and preceded by his torturous partial execution last year, raises serious questions about Alabma’s death penalty scheme. Woods and co-defendant Kerry Spencer were convicted of capital murder for the 2004 killings of three Birmingham police officers. Tommy Whisenhant was executed on May 27, 2010, in spite of improper behavior by the prosecution which biased the jury and substantial evidence of Mr. Whisenhant’s history of mental illness and abuse. Read this post before checking out the updated list of Arrests and Executions of Famous people. The case has also garnered the attention of celebrities like Kim Kardashian West, who has become an advocate for criminal justice reform. ", Alabama State Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement Wednesday that Woods was "correctly found guilty and sentenced to death by a jury of his peers.". The case was the latest in a series of legal fights over personal spiritual advisers at executions. Mr. Bradley fully cooperated with police and provided blood and other samples for comparison with the evidence. Montgomery, Alabama — Alabama is seeking to carry out what would be the first execution by a state in 2021, that of a 51-year-old inmate convicted of the shotgun slaying of a police detective's sister decades ago. Mr. McNabb was convicted in 1999 of capital murder and sentenced to death in the shooting of a Montgomery police officer after a highly publicized trial. The jury never heard the wealth of mitigating evidence about Mr. Price’s horrific childhood because his lawyer completely failed to conduct a pretrial investigation or even to prepare for the penalty phase. As such, the jury did not view Woods' acts as those of an innocent bystander; they believed that he was a fully engaged participant.". ... Alabama’s death row has been a magnet for controversy in recent years. Updated: Thursday, March 5, 2020 Leroy White was executed for the 1988 shooting death of his wife, Ruby. He did not finish high school and was homeless for part of his adult life. Updated: Thursday, March 5, 2020. Mr. Brooks was convicted of capital murder in 1993, when Alabama law capped attorney compensation at $1000 per case. The home was later shut down after investigations revealed rampant criminal child abuse and neglect by its staff. Christopher Brooks was executed on January 21, 2016, despite the United States Supreme Court’s ruling the previous week that a capital sentencing scheme like Alabama’s is unconstitutional, because the State of Alabama refused to postpone the execution. Despite this and other questions about the reliability of the proceedings in Mr. Hallford’s case, the state and federal courts allowed Mr. Hallford’s execution to be carried out. Chisholm's sister has come out against the execution, saying in a statement to ABC News provided by Wood's family: "I am writing to express my sincere wishes for Governor Ivey to stop the execution of Nathaniel Woods. A 19-year-old with significant cognitive impairments but no significant criminal history when he was arrested and charged with participating in a high-profile capital murder involving four victims in Shelby County, Brandon was too poor to hire a lawyer. He was facing trial in the Alabama Court of the Judiciary when he resigned quietly in 1990. Despite the continual misconduct by prosecutors throughout his trials and substantial evidence that Mr. Whisenhant was mentally ill, the Eleventh Circuit upheld Mr. Whisenhant’s death sentence. Mr. Callahan lived under the threat of execution until September 2007, when the United States Supreme Court’s decision to review the constitutionality of lethal injection put executions on hold across the country. Mr. Price was convicted of capital murder. In spite of the jury’s decision that life, not death, was the appropriate sentence in this case, and in spite of the federal court’s finding that his death sentence was unconstitutional – and even though he had an exemplary record in prison – the State of Alabama executed Willie McNair by lethal injection on May 14, 2009. After Woods was put to death, the son of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., who had joined a chorus of calls to halt the execution, called it a "mockery of justice. Earlier history. By Eliott C. McLaughlin, Martin Savidge and Ray Sanchez, CNN. John Parker was executed on June 10, 2010, for a crime that occurred when he was just 19 years old, despite the fact that a jury comprised of Alabama citizens who support the death penalty decided that life imprisonment without parole was the appropriate punishment in this case. Counsel in a capital case are required to develop this type of evidence, which would have humanized Mr. Brooks and provided the jury with the facts it needed to choose a life-without-parole sentence. "The fight is far from over. If they had effectively presented mitigating evidence about Derrick Mason’s age (19), mental health issues, and lack of significant criminal record, Judge Little wrote, it would have changed the jury’s vote and Judge Little’s sentence. EJI filed a complaint with the Department of Justice and the DEA seized the drugs. Instead of investigating evidence of brain dysfunction, trial counsel repeatedly told the jury that Brandon was a follower of Satan and his involvement in the crime was related to his membership in a Satan-worshipping gang—allegations so baseless and prejudicial that even the prosecutor recognized they could not be used against Brandon at trial. The State convicted Mr. Callahan based primarily on incriminating statements obtained by law enforcement officers during a two-day interrogation. The penalty phase started a half hour after the jury returned a guilty verdict and ended in a death sentence recommendation that same day. On Tuesday, King sent a letter to Ivey, a Republican, reading, "I stand with hundreds of thousands of Americans across Alabama and the nation, pleading with you not to execute Nathaniel Woods. Denying Mr. White any opportunity for appellate review is especially troubling because the United States Supreme Court recently decided to review a case that could render Mr. White’s death sentence unconstitutional. At the time, Judge Quattlebaum was engaged in a “consistent and persistent pattern of fraud” which ultimately led him to resign in disgrace. In a decision that focused on the procedural rules that limit federal habeas corpus review and did not reach the merits of Mr. Wood’s claim, the United States Supreme Court denied relief. He also exhibited behavior associated with mental illness: while awaiting trial, he refused to bathe, slammed his head against the wall of his cell, and attempted suicide by eating toilet paper. The lawyers claimed that they could not afford to do the work required in Mr. McNair’s case because Alabama law limited them to only $1000 for all out-of-court work. Alabama Governor Robert Bentley refused to intervene despite evidence presenting a compelling picture of Jason Williams’s background that neither his jury nor the sentencing judge had seen. Mr. Wood’s case highlights Alabama’s failure to provide adequate representation to defendants facing the death penalty. Because Alabama is the only state in the country with a significant death row population that refuses to provide counsel for condemned prisoners, Mr. Melson had to rely on a volunteer lawyer from out-of-state for his postconviction appeals.