Alvin Jackson was sentenced to death by the State of Arkansas for the murder of a correctional guard. According to court documents Alvin Jackson was serving a life sentence for one count of capital murder and two counts of attempted murder. Alvin Jackson who is now known as Rahman X was involved in an argument with the correctional guard before he stabbed him with a metal shank. Alvin Jackson was convicted and sentenced to death
Arkansas Death Row Inmate List
Alvin Jackson 2021 Information
ADC Number 000941
Name:Jackson/X, Alvin/ Rahman
Race BLACK Sex MALE Hair Color BLACK Eye Color BROWN Height69 inches Weight 190 lbs.
Birth Date 06/30/1970
Initial Receipt Date 04/29/1988
Facility Varner Supermax
Alvin Jackson More News
A Little Rock man on death row for the slaying of a prison guard in Pine Bluff is entitled to a new hearing on his claim that he is mentally retarded, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.
An attorney for condemned killer Alvin Bernal Jackson said the hearing may be delayed because of a pending appeal in a similar case.
Jackson was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in 1996 in the November 1995 stabbing death of Sgt. Scott Grimes, 41, at the Department of Correction’s Tucker Unit. At the time, Jackson was serving life in prison without parole in the 1990 slaying of Little Rock businessman Charles R. Colclasure, 47.
During the federal appeals process, Jackson, 37, asked for a hearing to present evidence to show that he is mentally retarded. He cited a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that executing mentally retarded people violated the Eighth Amendment protection from cruel and unusual punishment.
A federal judge refused to grant Jackson’s request, finding that he did not argue mental retardation as a defense at his trial and therefore could not make the argument on appeal.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis reversed the lower court ruling Tuesday and sent the case back U.S. District Court in Little Rock for an evidentiary hearing.
The appeals court cited its recent ruling in a another death penalty case to explain its ruling in Jackson’s case. The court ruled in June that convicted murderer Sedrice Maurice Simpson, also known as Sedric Simpson, 35, of Dallas County, was entitled to a new hearing on his claim of mental retardation, even though he did not present a defense of mental retardation at trial.
The court found that Simpson was raising a “previously unavailable federal claim” based on the Supreme Court’s 2002 decision, which did not exist at the time of Simpson’s trial. That Simpson could have argued mental retardation as a defense under Arkansas law but did not do so at his trial was irrelevant, the court said.
The state is appealing the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. Jackson’s attorney, Jeff Rosenzweig of Little Rock, said Tuesday he anticipates the state will move for a delay of Jackson’s evidentiary hearing, pending the outcome of state’s appeal in the Simpson case.