On June 26, 2026, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the conviction and death sentence imposed on Jason Osborn, finding that the prosecutor violated Mr. Osborn’s right to remain silent at trial.
Jason Osborn was charged with capital murder during a robbery more than six months after Ricardo Brown was found unresponsive on the side of a road in Decatur, Alabama, on October 28, 2018. An ambulance transported Mr. Brown to the hospital, where he passed away.
The Morgan County coroner concluded that Mr. Brown had been hit by a car, and had suffered a head injury. His phone and other possessions were in his pockets. The police initially investigated the death as a hit-and-run but ran out of leads.
Then, starting in May 2019, a series of jailhouse informants began telling police that Mr. Osborn, who was in jail on a drug-possession charge, had killed Mr. Brown. Based on these informant statements, the State exhumed Mr. Brown’s body and performed an autopsy.
No physical evidence connected Mr. Osborn to Mr. Brown’s death, but Mr. Osborn was charged with capital robbery-murder.
The State’s entire case against Mr. Osborn rested on the testimony of two jailhouse informants who claimed to expect nothing from prosecutors in exchange for their testimony even though they faced the prospect of substantial prison sentences. The prosecution bolstered its case by introducing the substance of other informants’ statements not by calling the informants to testify, but through the testimony of a law enforcement officer.
The prosecution obtained a conviction in the case by telling the jury in closing argument that it could not present direct evidence of Mr. Osborn’s guilt, since “there’s only two people that know what happened out there and one of them is dead.”
The Constitution protects a criminal defendant’s right not to testify at trial. That right is violated when the prosecutor comments on a defendant’s decision not to testify.
On appeal, EJI argued that the prosecutor’s statement during closing argument that “there’s only two people that know what happened out there and one of them is dead” was an improper comment on Mr. Osborn’s constitutional right not to testify. The comment was especially prejudicial in light of the minimal evidence of Mr. Osborn’s guilt, because it gave the jury the false impression that he could have filled in the gaps of the prosecution’s case and likely triggered an inappropriate assumption that an innocent person faced with such weak evidence would have taken the stand.
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals agreed, holding that the prosecution’s remark was a direct comment on Mr. Osborn’s decision not to testify, and because the trial judge took no curative action, the court reversed Mr. Osborn’s conviction and death sentence.