Equal Justice Initiative

On September 17, 2008, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Alabama prisoner Herbert Williams's death sentence because his appointed lawyers failed to investigate and present basic facts about Mr. Williams and his life history, especially the extreme abuse inflicted on him as a child. The court also directed the federal district court to address the merits of Mr. Williams's claim that the prosecutor unconstitutionally excluded African Americans from his jury.

In a decision released on Friday, September 5, 2008, the Alabama Supreme Court reaffirmed that juror misconduct claims may be raised for the first time in a Rule 32 petition.

On March 11, 2008, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s judgment granting Alabama death row prisoner James Charles Lawhorn a new sentencing trial because his trial lawyer was ineffective.

The Alabama Supreme Court reinstated death row inmate Jarrod Taylor’s appeal from the dismissal of his Rule 32 petition and held that the Court of Criminal Appeals erred in dismissing Mr. Taylor’s appeal based on purported problems with his volunteer lawyer's signature on the notice of appeal.

James Borden challenged his capital murder conviction and death sentence in a timely Rule 32 petition filed in 2001, in which he argued inter alia that he was ineligible for the death penalty because he was mentally retarded, that his trial lawyer provided ineffective assistance at both phases of his capital trial, and that jurors engaged in misconduct. While the petition was pending in the Rule 32 trial court, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S.

The Alabama Supreme Court reversed the Court of Criminal Appeals’s decision in Jimmy Davis’s appeal from the denial of postconviction relief and remanded for that court to consider Mr. Davis’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims on the merits. Ex parte Davis, No. 1051719, 2007 WL 2216893 (Aug. 3, 2007).

In a per curiam opinion, the Alabama Supreme Court held that Alabama Rule of Criminal Procedure 24.1 did not prohibit a defendant from filing a written motion for a new trial with the trial judge in open court.

The Alabama Supreme Court, in Ex parte Ward, No. 1051818, 2007 WL 1576054 (Ala. June 1, 2007), held as a matter of first impression that the one-year statute of limitations for filing a Rule 32 petition is not a jurisdictional bar and the doctrine of equitable tolling is available to permit filing outside the one-year period in extraordinary cases.