Alabama Executions
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2010
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.
John Parker was appointed an attorney because he was to poor to hire one. The lawyer appointed to represent him told the court that he did not have enough experience to handle a capital trial, but the trial court did not appoint more qualified counsel to the case.
During jury selection, the prosecutor excluded 89% of qualified African Americans from jury service, which resulted in an almost all-white jury. The prosecutor felt confident in his race-based exclusions because Mr. Parker is white. However, the United State Supreme Court later held that it is illegal to bar a person from jury service because of his or her race, regardless of the the defendant's race. One of Mr. Parker’s co-defendants was granted a new trial based on this Supreme Court decision; Mr. Parker was not.
Although Mr. Parker's jury decided that death was not the appropriate sentence, the elected trial judge overrode the jury's verdict and sentenced Mr. Parker to death. His older and more culpable co-defendant was sentenced to life without parole.
On appeal, the state appeals court required the prosecution to provide race-neutral reasons for excluding 8 of the 9 black potential jurors from Mr. Parker’s jury. The prosecutor claimed he struck one black venireperson for minor traffic offenses; but the prosecutor did not strike a white venireperson who had two prior tickets for driving while intoxicated. 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. Even though the State struck black people who shared key characteristics with whites who not struck, the appellate courts refused to grant a new trial.
Subsequent appellate courts upheld Mr. Parker’s conviction despite evidence that his admittedly inexperienced trial attorney failed to investigate and present crucial evidence, such as evidence that Mr. Parker had suffered brain damage. Appointed counsel also did not appeal the trial court's ruling allowing the jury to hear a statement that police obtained from Mr. Parker while he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
After an execution date was scheduled and his lawyer abandoned him, EJI provided assistance to challenge Mr. Parker's execution. The Alabama Supreme Court, over the dissent of two justices, refused to stay Mr. Parker’s execution despite changes in Alabama law that require review of the trial court's decision to reject the jury's life verdict.
Mr. Parker’s faulty trial and death sentence is yet another example of the harms of judicial override, which grants elected judges almost unrestrained power to reject the jury's sentencing verdict.
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.
Mr. Whisenhant came from an extremely troubled background. 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. Tommy was regularly beat by his grandmother, and when he was only 12, he was sexually assaulted by two older girls who threatened to castrate him if he refused to have intercourse with them. This long-term abuse took its toll, and according to an expert psychiatrist, Tommy suffered from severe mental disease that destroyed his ability to distinguish right from wrong.
In closing arguments, the prosecutor suggested that Mr. Whisenhant might be released from a mental institution back onto the streets if the jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity. Although the prosecutor was warned this argument would unfairly bias the jury, he repeatedly disregarded the trial court’s orders and violated well-established Alabama law forbidding this argument. These reckless remarks were a glaring error, and led to the reversal of Mr. Whisenhant’s conviction.
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. At the sentencing hearing, the prosecutor impermissibly biased the jury by suggesting, without any proof, that Mr. Whisenhant had previously committed other crimes. The Alabama Supreme Court found this error tainted the hearing and ordered a new sentencing hearing.
Mr. Whisenhant was again sentenced to die at the new hearing, and after the Alabama Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal, he appealed to the federal court system. 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.
2009
Max Payne was executed on October 8, 2009. As a child, he was so severely physically and sexually abused by his stepfather, mother, and sister, that he fled home before his 14th birthday. Despite his history of head injuries and substance abuse, Mr. Payne was not allowed to present expert mental health testimony to assist in his defense. He was sentenced to death by a jury that did not have the opportunity to consider Mr. Payne’s history of abuse or that he was impaired by drugs and alcohol at the time of the crime.
The State presented no eyewitness testimony at trial, and a witness testified that Mr. Payne’s accomplice had confessed to the killing. Although there was evidence that the prosecution deliberately intimidated and interfered with a key defense witness and withheld exculpatory evidence, the state and federal courts denied relief.
Jack Trawick was executed on June 11, 2009. Read EJI's Statement on the Execution of Jack Trawick.
Willie McNair was put to death by the State of Alabama on May 14, 2009, even though his jury decided that life, not death, was the appropriate sentence in his case.
Mr. McNair, who is black, was first condemned in 1991 for the killing of a white woman, following a trial from which many African American jurors were excluded because of their race.
At trial, Houston County District Attorney Douglas Valeska relied on illegal evidence, inflammatory comments, and name-calling to secure a conviction and death sentence. The sentence was later reversed by an Alabama appeals court.
At the second and final sentencing, the jury returned a verdict of life imprisonment without possibility of parole. The trial judge, without explanation, rejected the jury’s verdict and sentenced Mr. McNair to death.
Judicial override of life verdicts is a highly controversial practice, given that in every other aspect of a criminal case, the jury is the voice of the people. Alabama is the only state in the country that allows elected state court judges virtually unlimited discretion to override jury verdicts of life and impose death.
A federal district court agreed that Mr. McNair’s death sentence could not stand. In 2004, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama found that Mr. McNair's death sentence was unconstitutional because his trial lawyers - who knew what had happened at the first trial - nonetheless failed at the second trial to present crucial information that would have explained the crime and persuaded the judge to follow the jury’s life verdict.
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.
The federal court pointed to evidence presented by EJI attorneys in a federal hearing which showed that this crime resulted from drug-induced derangement. People who had known Willie McNair his whole life testified that such behavior was highly out of character for him and that he was held in extremely high esteem in his community. Expert witnesses explained that this offense would not have happened but for Mr. McNair’s tragic and severe substance addiction.
The federal court found that Mr. McNair's lawyers failed to fulfill their constitutional duty to represent him effectively, and vacated his death sentence.
That ruling was reversed by a federal appeals court on procedural grounds. The appeals court did not disagree with the findings about the poor quality of Mr. McNair’s legal representation, but held that the federal trial court should not have allowed additional evidence to be presented in federal court. The appeals court decided that procedural rules prevented Mr. McNair from presenting this evidence, and that without it, his claims failed.
Mr. McNair appealed to the Alabama Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court, but neither court would review his claims.
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.
Jimmy Dill was executed on April 16, 2009, in spite of serious concerns that he did not receive the adequate legal assistance necessary to ensure a reliable conviction and sentence in his case.
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.
Because he was poor, Mr. Dill had only an appointed lawyer whose pay was limited to $1000 and who did not investigate or present evidence in Mr. Dill's defense. Some 70% of the people on Alabama's death row were represented at trial by lawyers whose compensation was capped at $1000.
Neither the jury nor any court heard evidence about the circumstances under which the shooting victim did not die until nine months after the crime after evidence emerged that his caretaker failed to provide him appropriate treatment, or evidence about Mr. Dill’s horrific experiences with sexual abuse and his lifelong struggles with drug and alcohol addiction.
As a result, these decision-makers could not reliably determine that this case involved the "worst of the worst" offenses so as to require a death sentence - particularly where the State of Alabama had previously decided the death penalty was not appropriate in this case. Prior to trial, the State offered a plea agreement to a parole-eligible life sentence, which Mr. Dill would have accepted but for his lawyer's failure to explain it to him.
Danny Bradley was executed on February 12, 2009, despite the State of Alabama's refusal to permit him to test DNA evidence that could have exonerated him.
Mr. Bradley was tried for rape-murder of his stepdaughter in 1983, before DNA testing became available. The State relied on serological testing, which showed that Mr. Bradley could have been the source of some evidence samples, but was not the source of other samples.
Two other men confessed to killing Mr. Bradley's step-daughter, but their blood was never tested. Police knew about one of these confessions prior to Mr. Bradley's trial but never disclosed the information to the defense -- an error that four Alabama Supreme Court justices found denied Mr. Bradley a fair trial.
Blood samples from two men who tried to pick up the victim in a van on the day she was killed matched some of the evidence samples from the scene and rape kit.
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. When he discovered her missing, he enlisted neighbors and in-laws to search for her and contacted the police. Mr. Bradley fully cooperated with police and provided blood and other samples for comparison with the evidence. He maintained that DNA testing would prove he was not one of the men who committed the rape-murder.
After initially agreeing to provide the evidence for DNA testing, the State claimed to have lost it. Mr. Bradley filed a federal lawsuit to require the State to produce the evidence for testing; the suit was still pending on appeal in federal court when the State of Alabama executed Mr. Bradley.
Jimmy Callahan was executed on January 15, 2009. 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.
The State convicted Mr. Callahan based primarily on incriminating statements obtained by law enforcement officers during a two-day interrogation. Mr. Callahan argued that the statements were coerced, but could not call a key witness to the interrogation because that witness was Circuit Judge Samuel Monk, who presided over Mr. Callahan's trial.
The entire sentencing proceeding took less than one hour. Mr. Callahan's lawyer presented no evidence to persuade the jury and judge to sentence Mr. Callahan to life without parole instead of death and actually asked the jurors to have mercy on him rather than on his client: “I hope you don’t think I’m foolish in speaking on behalf of him that he not be sentenced to the electric chair.”
Mr. Callahan was sentenced to death in 1982, but in 1985, the Alabama Supreme Court found that the police improperly had obtained statements from Mr. Callahan and reversed his conviction. His death sentence was vacated and he was removed from death row.
Two years later, in 1987, the State tried again to prosecute Mr. Callahan and he was convicted and sentenced to death a second time. After seventeen years, the federal district court in 2004 granted Mr. Callahan a new trial because of the trial judge’s participation in the interrogation and his lawyer’s ineffectiveness. For over a year, Mr. Callahan was not subject to the death penalty. Then the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court's decision and reinstated Mr. Callahan'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. The Alabama Supreme Court nonetheless scheduled Mr. Callahan's execution for 6:00 p.m. on January 31, 2008. After Mr. Callahan and his family had said their final good-byes, the United States Supreme Court stayed the execution at 5:00 p.m.
Mr. Callahan's experience exemplifies the problems inherent in capital punishment, including the length of time people spend on death row, and the "on-again, off-again" nature of cases where relief is granted and then taken away. Indeed, the partial execution suffered by Mr. Callahan and his family last year is similar to a fake execution, which is a recognized torture technique.
2008
The State of Alabama executed no one in 2008.
2007
In 2007, Alabama executed three men: Luther Williams, Aaron Jones, and Darrell Grayson. Mr. Williams, who is black, was executed on August 23, 2007, for the murder of a white man. Mr. Grayson, who is black, was executed on July 26, 2007, for the murder of a white woman. Mr. Jones, who is black, was executed on May 3, 2007, for the murder of a white woman.
Luther Williams, who is black, was convicted and sentenced to death in Tuscaloosa County for the robbery-murder of a white man after a trial in which a racially-charged and highly prejudicial statement was admitted in evidence against Mr. Williams. The statement was contained in a file from Mr. Williams’s psychological evaluation that his trial lawyer did not bother to read or review prior to trial. The courts found that this failure, and defense counsel’s failure to present testimony from witnesses who observed first-hand that Mr. Williams had been abandoned as a child by both of his parents, was whipped by his step-father, and was locked out of the house for days at a time and left to survive in the streets, did not amount to ineffective assistance of counsel. The courts also found that evidence from eyewitnesses who saw someone else driving the victim’s truck on the night of the crime and who knew the State’s key witness to be a liar would not have made a difference at Mr. Williams’s trial.
Darrell Grayson and his ten brothers and sisters grew up extremely poor in a violent, chaotic home. When he was accused of capital murder at age 20, he had no money to hire a lawyer or obtain expert assistance for his capital murder trial. His appointed lawyer conceded in closing argument to the jury at the penalty phase that “this is a death by electrocution case.” After he was convicted and sentenced to death, new scientific developments in DNA led Mr. Grayson to file a lawsuit against the State of Alabama seeking access to potentially exculpatory biological evidence that was used against him at trial. Although new DNA testing could have conclusively proven that an identifiable third party unconnected to Mr. Grayson committed the rape that is at the heart of the State’s theory of the crime, the courts denied Mr. Grayson access to the evidence and permitted him to be executed.
Aaron Jones was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1978 killing of Carl and Willene Nelson in rural Blount County, Alabama. His conviction was overturned after Alabama’s death penalty statute was held unconstitutional in 1980 and he was convicted and sentenced to death following a second trial in 1982. At the second trial, he was represented by Jack G. Davis, now deceased, and George M. Boles, whose referral to Mr. Jones using a racist epithet was tolerated by the state courts and Eleventh Circuit on appeal. 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. 2006). Boles began working on Jones’s case only a few days before trial. He and Mr. Davis failed to present evidence that the victims were already dead before Mr. Jones inflicted any wounds and, at the sentencing phase, presented only Mr. Jones’s testimony in his own behalf about a prior conviction. 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.