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Robert Melson Alabama Execution

Robert Melson was executed by the State of Alabama for a triple murder. According to court documents Robert Melson would attempt to rob a Popeye’s Restaurant and in the process would shoot and kill three workers. Robert Melson would be executed by lethal injection on June 8 2017

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A man convicted of killing three people during the 1994 robbery of an Alabama fast-food restaurant was put to death Thursday by lethal injection.

Robert Melson, 46, was pronounced dead at 10:27 p.m. CDT Thursday at a southwest Alabama prison, authorities said. The execution was the state’s second of the year.

State prosecutors said Melson and another man who used to work at the restaurant, robbed a Popeye’s in Gadsden, 60 miles (96 kilometers) northeast of Birmingham. They said Melson opened fire on four employees in the restaurant’s freezer. Nathaniel Baker, Tamika Collins and Darrell Collier were killed.

The surviving employee, Bryant Archer, crawled for help and was able to identify one of the robbers as the former worker. While he could not identify Melson, prosecutors said Melson told police he had been with the former employee that night. A shoeprint behind the store matched Melson’s shoes, they said.

Melson’s attorneys had filed a flurry of last-minute appeals seeking to stay the execution. The filings centered on Alabama’s use of the sedative midazolam which some states have turned to as other lethal injection drugs became difficult to obtain.

Midazolam is supposed to prevent inmates from feeling pain before other drugs are given to stop their lungs and heart, but several executions in which inmates lurched or coughed have raised questions about its use. An inmate in Alabama coughed and heaved for the first 13 minutes of an execution held in December.

Melson’s attorney argued that midazolam does not anesthetize an inmate, but they might look still, because a second drug, a paralytic, prevents them from moving.

Alabama’s execution protocol is an illusion. It creates the illusion of a peaceful death when in truth, it is anything but,” Melson’s attorneys wrote in the filing to the Alabama Supreme Court.

The Alabama attorney general’s office argued midazolam’s use has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court and it has allowed multiple executions to proceed using the drug, including the execution of an Alabama inmate last month.

“The State, the victims’ families, and the surviving victim in this case have waited long enough for justice to be delivered,” the attorney general’s office wrote in a court filing as they urged the courts to let the execution proceed.

https://www.gadsdentimes.com/news/20170608/melson-executed

Thomas Arthur Alabama Execution

Thomas Arthur was executed by the State of Alabama for the murder of Troy Wicker in 1982. According to court documents Thomas Arthur would break into the home of Troy Wicker and fatally shoot the victim, Arthur was paid to murder Wicker. Thomas Arthur had already served a prison sentence for murder. Thomas Arthur would be executed by lethal injection on May 25, 2017

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Thomas Arthur, who had escaped execution seven times in the past, was put to death for the 1982 killing of Troy Wicker. He was pronounced dead at 12:15 a.m. Friday, according to Alabama Department of Corrections spokesman Bob Horton.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay of execution at 10:45 p.m. Thursday, an hour and fifteen minutes before Arthur’s death warrant was set to expire.

ADOC Commissioner Jeff Dunn said Arthur made the following statement before being put to death: I am sorry I failed you as a father. I love you more than anything on earth.

Media witnesses said Arthur’s oldest daughter, Sherrie Stone, was present for the execution. They also reported that there appeared to be no complications as Arthur was being put to death.

Shortly after his execution, Stone spoke on her father’s life and death at an Atmore Holiday Inn Express.

“First of all, I would like to express my deepest sympathy for the family of Troy Wicker. I hope what has transpired today will allow them to have some peace and closure. I’ve never known for certain whether my father killed Troy Wicker,” Stone said.

“At times I was convinced he did. At times I believed he was innocent. Over decades you go through a roller coaster. Now I’ll never know the truth because the evidence that could prove if my father was innocent or guilty has not been tested using the latest DNA testing procedure.”

Arthur’s attorneys had earlier called for DNA testing that could implicate another person in the crime.

Gov. Kay Ivey on Thursday denied Arthur’s request for testing, saying that hair samples found at the scene that Arthur wanted tested were presented to the juries that heard Arthur’s conviction, “all of whom convicted Arthur of capital murder beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Stone went on to call for mandator DNA testing on all available evidence on all capital cases across the United States.

SCOTUS reviews a petition filed by Arthur’s attorneys asking that they have access to a cellphone while witnessing his execution.

“Deprived of access to a telephone, Arthur will be unable to seek legal redress if during the execution process, Alabama begins to subject him to cruel and unusual punishment. Arthur’s right of access to the courts will have been thwarted,” the petition reads.

U.S. District Judge Keith Watkins had previously denied the request on April 12, then the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld that decision. The Alabama attorney general’s office argued in a brief Thursday that Arthur was just trying to delay his execution and had not filed the request in time

“It is clear that, had he so desired, Arthur could have brought this claim in a more timely fashion,” the brief said. “Because he did not, this court should protect the state’s enforcement of its criminal rules and procedures.”

Arthur had separately petitioned for a stay on the basis that the state’s method of execution would cause him cruel and unusual pain.

Multiple death row inmates have filed suit over the state’s use of the sedative midazolam, arguing that it does not properly render a person unconscious before administering the second and third drugs, allowing for cruel and unusual pain in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

In December, witnesses said death row inmate Ronald Smith writhed and coughed for the first 13 minutes of his execution after being injected with Midazolam; his attorneys called the execution botched.

Arthur’s attorneys cited Smith’s execution as a reason why they should be allowed access to a phone as they witness his execution.

“(Smith’s) counsel were powerless to do anything — having been barred from having access to a phone, they had no way to access the courts,” his petition reads.

Sonia Sotomayor was the lone justice to dissent from the court’s decision not to halt the execution.

“Alabama plans to execute Thomas Arthur (Thursday night) using a three-drug lethal-injection protocol that uses midazolam as a sedative. I continue to doubt whether midazolam is capable of rendering prisoners insensate to the excruciating pain of lethal injection and thus whether midazolam may be constitutionally used in lethal injection protocols,” she wrote.

The Supreme Court held in Glossip v. Gross that if death row inmates wished to not be executed with midazolam, they have to suggest an alternate way to die that is readily available.

Arthur has asked for death by firing squad or by a different assimilation of drugs. ADOC has successfully proved through litigation that neither of these alternatives are readily available.

He was sentenced to death in 1991 after asking a jury to give him capital punishment. Arthur reasoned that it would give him more time to successfully appeal his case.

“If I was permitted, I’d shake your hands,” he told them. In a recent interview with the Associated Press, with his scheduled execution days away, Arthur’s tone had changed.

“They are going to kill me this time,” he said.

Arthur, 75, most recently escaped death Nov. 3, winning a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court after his attorneys filed an appeal challenging the state’s method of execution.

His 1991 death sentence came after he was convicted for the third time of Wicker’s murder-for-hire. He had been found guilty twice before but both convictions were overturned.

It was Arthur’s second murder conviction. He was in prison for the 1977 murder of his sister-in-law. He was participating in a work release program, the court found, when Arthur disguised himself as a black man, broke into Wicker’s home, and shot him in his bed.

Arthur maintains that he didn’t kill Wicker. His attorneys say that no physical evidence links Arthur to the scene and that a key witness testified against him to win early release.

He also had an appeal pending in the Alabama Supreme Court which questioned whether the Alabama legislature improperly delegated authority over execution methods to the Alabama Department of Corrections, but that appeal was denied.

Despite the dwindling options of recourse left for him in the time leading up to his execution, Arthur remained determined to fight his sentence.

“I won’t give up ‘til I draw my last breath,” he told the AP. “I won’t give up.”

The Office of the Alabama Attorney General wrote in its responses to Arthur’s petitions that Arthur had spent the last two decades abusing the justice system.

“The prior seven execution dates were stayed as a result of Arthur’s long-term manipulation of the federal and state courts through civil litigation and successive collateral attacks. In the most notable instance, Arthur received a reprieve based on the presentation of perjured testimony,” the response read.

Horton said Arthur refused his breakfast and final meal. He has not had visitors, though he has spoken with attorneys and some of his children in the past 24 hours.

He requested to have a photo of his children in the execution chamber, which ADOC officials said he was allowed.

Arthur’s execution was the first carried out in the state this year. Two were carried out in 2016 — Christopher Brooks in January and Ronald Smith in December.

Before Brooks, the state didn’t carry out an execution for 21/2 years.

Executions halted due to a shortage of drugs used in executions, particularly the sedatives meant to render the condemned inmate unconscious before the injection of the fatal chemicals. Legal challenges to lethal injection also slowed the execution process.

https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/2017/05/25/thomas-arthur-executed-thursday-evening/345627001/

Walter Moody Alabama Execution

Walter Moody was executed by the State of Alabama for the murder of a judge. According to court documents Walter Moody sent a letter bomb to Judge Robert Vance. When the US Federal Judge open the package a pipe bomb went off killing the judge. Walter Moody would be executed by lethal injection on April 19, 2018

Walter Moody More News

Getting a plainly wrapped package in the mail wasn’t all that surprising. It was the holidays, after all. What was inside was another matter. It was a bomb.

When federal appeals Judge Robert Vance opened the small brown parcel in the kitchen of his suburban Alabama home on December 16, 1989, it exploded, killing him instantly and seriously injuring his wife.

Two days later, virtually the same scenario happened again. This time, the victim was Atlanta Attorney Robert Robertson.

It wasn’t over. Two more bombs mysteriously appeared. The third, sent to the federal courthouse in Atlanta, was intercepted. A fourth was recovered after being mailed to the Jacksonville office of the NAACP. Through brave and careful work, ATF personnel defused the one bomb and Florida police bomb experts the other.

The murders and serial bombings stunned the nation. Who’d be spiteful enough to send mail bombs during the holidays?

That’s what we aimed to find out. We started with the obvious. Both men were known for their work in civil rights. But that turned out to be a red herring.

Meanwhile, with extensive help from U.S. postal inspectors, we’d gathered the remnants of the bombs and packages for our Lab to analyze, learned the path the packages had taken through the postal system, and assembled a long list of suspects.

A break came when an ATF expert was contacted by a colleague who had helped defuse one of the bombs. He thought it resembled one he’d seen 17 years before. And he remembered the name of the person who had built it—Walter Leroy Moody.

With this lead, the Bureau and its partners began an extensive probe of the events—purchases, contacts, phone calls, etc.—and ultimately linked both the exploded and unexploded bombs to each other and to Moody. Court authorized surveillance of Moody at home and in jail (he talked to himself) provided additional evidence. Other leads were followed, suspects eliminated or linked to the crimes, and detailed analysis done on every bit of evidence, information, and trail that we came across.

Over the next year, Moody’s motive became clear. We found a pattern of experimentation with bombs dating back to the early 1970s when Moody was convicted of possessing a bomb that had hurt his wife when it exploded. His conviction and failed appeals in that case had led him to harbor a long-festering resentment of the court system. His contact with Judge Vance in a 1980s case led to even deeper resentment and a personal animus that led to revenge. The other bombs, we determined, were meant to make us suspect that racism was the motive.

By the spring of 1991, with the help of prosecutor (and future FBI Director) Louis Freeh, a solid case had been developed. The trial was difficult. Moody had made every effort to conceal his connection to the bombings.

On June 28, 1991, based on the extensive investigative work of the FBI, the ATF, the IRS, the U.S. Marshals, the Georgia State Police and many others, the jury found Moody guilty of more than 70 charges and sentenced him to life in prison.

It ended up one of the largest cases in our history—and an important one, as protecting our nation’s judges is a responsibility we take very seriously.

https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/judge-vance-murder

Michael Eggers Alabama Death Row

Michael Eggers was executed by the State of Alabama for the murder of an elderly woman. According to court documents Michael Eggers would beat to death sixty seven year old woman who was attempting to help him. Michael Eggers would be executed by lethal injection on March 15, 2018

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The state of Alabama executed Michael Wayne Eggers– an inmate who asked to die– on Thursday night at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. His time of death was 7:29 p.m.

This is the first execution the state has carried out this year.

Just before 6 p.m., the set execution time, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay of execution and announced they would not review the case. Their decision came after Eggers’ former attorney filed petitions for a stay and for a writ of certiorari on Monday.

Eggers, 50, was convicted of capital murder in 2002 for the death of 67-year-old Bennie Francis Murray. In 2016, the inmate said he wished to expedite his execution date and fired his attorneys from the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Montgomery.

Eggers’ execution started at 6:54 p.m., when the curtain to the three viewing rooms opened. The warden first read Eggers his death warrant, and then asked if he had any last words. Eggers replied, “No ma’am.”

At 6:56 p.m., Eggers gave a thumbs up signal using his hand facing the room where his brother, sister-in-law, two friends, and spiritual advisor sat, along with members of the media. One of the men in Eggers’ group gave back a sign language signal meaning, “I love you.”

At 7:00 p.m., Eggers showed signs of heavy breathing. A corrections officer performed a consciousness check at 7:03 p.m. and loudly said, “inmate Eggers,” three times. The officer also brushed Eggers’ eye and pinched him, and Eggers’ arm moved slightly.

His breathing slowed, and another consciousness check was performed at 7:09 p.m. Eggers made no movements.

At 7:12 p.m., the inmate’s breathing appeared to stop. The curtains were closed for the viewing rooms at 7:22 p.m., and Alabama Department of Corrections spokesman Bob Horton announced the time of death was officially 7:29 p.m.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshal issued this statement following the execution: “Michael Eggers showed no mercy towards his victim, his former employer, Bennie Francis Murray, who donated much of her personal time to helping him find a new job. On the night of her murder, Mrs. Murray gave Eggers a lift to pick up his car. Instead of showing her gratitude, Eggers rewarded her kindness by brutally beating and strangling her. He even returned to the scene of the crime to make sure she was dead. After 18 years of waiting, justice has finally been served tonight for the Murray family.”

Gov. Kay Ivey also issued a statement. She said: “When an execution is approaching, I thoroughly consider all elements of the crime committed, the procedural history of the case and any mitigating and aggravating factors which are present. With every execution, my goal is to ensure that the law is followed and that justice is ultimately served for all parties involved, including the accused and the victim. Mr. Eggers was convicted of brutally beating and then murdering Mrs. Francis Murray, who was simply trying to help him. The facts are clear, and Mr. Eggers admits, that he went to great lengths to ensure Mrs. Murray’s death and then to hide the evidence of his crime. His case has been reviewed at every level of the judiciary and has consistently been upheld, including Mr. Eggers’ own personal request to have his sentence carried out. After having considered Mr. Eggers’ wanton crime and all the factors surrounding his case, I determined it was best to allow the laws of this state to be followed and for the execution to be completed.”

Members of the media were driven to the prison just before 6 p.m., but were not allowed inside the facility until approximately 45 minutes later. Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn said there were no issues with the execution. “It just takes time to get the inmate prepared,” he said. “There was nothing unusual about that.”

“This execution went exactly according to our protocol,” Dunn said.

No representatives from the victim’s family witnessed the execution, and none provided a statement to Dunn.

Following the execution, several of the men with Eggers’ friends and family shook the hands of corrections officers inside the viewing room and thanked them.

Eggers’ final meal was the same meal that was served to the general population: Chicken creole, dirty rice, turnip greens, cornbread, cream corn, cake, and a grape drink. He also ate breakfast, which consisted of eggs, grits, prunes, two biscuits and gravy.

Eggers made no phone calls in the past two days. Wednesday, he was visited by his son, brother, sister-in-law, and five friends. Today, he was visited by his brother, sister-in-law, and ten friends.

As a special request, Eggers asked that no attorneys be allowed to visit him or witness his execution. He did allow his brother, sister-in-law, two friends, and his spiritual advisor to witness. Alabama Department of Corrections spokesman Bob Horton confirmed that each of those people will attend the execution.

The execution comes after years of Eggers seeking to represent himself during his legal proceedings, firing his attorneys from the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Montgomery, and asking the state to expedite his execution. A federal judge declared him competent to waive his appeals, and the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision last year.

In 2002, Eggers was convicted of capital murder for the December 2000 killing of 67-year-old Bennie Francis Murray. Murray and her husband owned a carnival concessions business that traveled with various carnivals for Kissel Rides and Shows, but lived in Talladega when they weren’t on the road.

According to court records and previous stories from the Birmingham News, Eggers worked as a short-order cook for the Murrays until September of 2000 when he moved to Jasper. In late December of that year, then 33-year-old Eggers called Murray and asked for his job back. She said that the carnival was on a break until the next spring, and that the converted trailer where several of their employees lived had no room for another person at the time. On Dec. 28, he called back and asked Murray to pick up him and his teenage son from the bus station in Birmingham. She picked then up and the three went to Talladega.

On Dec. 30, 2000, Eggers asked Murray to drive him and his son back to their home in Jasper. She agreed, and the three left in her white 1988 Chevrolet pickup truck.

After dropping off his son at the Jasper apartment, Eggers asked Murray to drive him to his car in Nauvoo. Again, Murray agreed to drive Eggers. On the way to Nauvoo, Eggers told police he and Murray got into a fight, and he beat her unconscious. He said he then pushed her out of the truck, and he took off.

Eggers said after he left, he worried that Murray was still alive and he “wasn’t going to let her stay out there suffering,” court records show; so, he went back, and kicked her and choked her. According to court records, “Eggers then dragged Francis into nearby woods where she could not be seen from the road and, because he believed she was still alive at that point, he put a tree limb on her throat and stood on it in an effort to kill her.”

Eggers was arrested in Kissimmee, Florida, about one week after Murray disappeared. Police found Murray’s abandoned truck in Kentucky earlier that day, and discovered someone had used her ATM card several times in the state on Dec. 31 and on Jan. 1, 2001. He was found in Florida after being tracked through telephone calls.

After his arrest Eggers led police to the missing woman’s unburied body, which still was underneath the tree limb, in a wooded area in northwest Walker County.

Eggers was found guilty by a Walker County jury at his 2002 trial, and the jury voted 11-1 to recommend the death penalty. Circuit Court Judge James Brotherton followed the jury’s recommendation.

Eggers spoke at his sentencing hearing. “I stand before you today, not to beg for my life or seek your sympathy. I am asking for a sentence of death… my actions cannot be justified,” he said.

The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals later upheld his conviction and death sentence.

In 2014, Eggers was appointed lawyers from the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Montgomery to handle his appeals. The inmate, however, said he wanted to fire his attorneys and waive future appeals.

A federal hearing was held in April 2016 to determine Eggers’ competency. Both Eggers, his former lawyers’ expert witness Dr. Kenneth Benedict, and the state’s expert Dr. Glen King testified. Following the hearing, a federal judge ruled Eggers competent to give up his rights to appeal and dismiss his lawyers, and the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals later agreed.

In December, Assistant Federal Defender John Palombi asked the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals to hold a rehearing on the case with its full panel of judges, but they denied his request.

Eggers’ execution date was set in January.

As of Thursday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court had not ruled on Palombi’s petition for a stay of execution. Monday, the lawyer filed for a stay and for a writ of certioari, or a request to review the case. “Michael Eggers is severely mentally ill,” one of the filings states. “His testimony and filings are strong evidence of the irrationality of his reasons for wanting to terminate present counsel and to abandon his appeals.”

Tuesday, the Alabama Attorney General’s Office filed responses to Palombi’s requests. “While appointed counsel may speculate about the reasons Eggers wanted to discharge his counsel and waive his appeals, the fact remains that he is competent to do so,” the AG’s filing to the Supreme Court states.

In a filing on Wednesday, the federal defender’s office, however, countered to the U.S. Supreme Court that Eggers isn’t competent.

“Michael Eggers is delusional and has been equivocal on the issue of whether he wants to be executed for over 15 years. This Court should stay his execution and take this case to examine the important issues surrounding the execution of the mentally ill, in particular, whether a death-sentenced inmate should be allowed to expedite his execution with the help of the State, when what he truly desires is to represent himself.”

His former attorneys argued to the nation’s highest court they believe the 50-year-old inmate is delusional and wasn’t competent when he dropped his appeals and asked the courts to “expedite” his execution. The U.S. Supreme Court denied their petitions on Thursday evening, before the execution was set to begin.

Eggers execution date is the third one the state has faced this year. First, Vernon Madison was set to be executed on January 25, but the U.S. Supreme Court stayed his execution. On February 22, the state was set to execute Doyle Lee Hamm–a 61-year-old inmate who has been on death row over 30 years for killing a motel clerk in Cullman. After a brief delay, the state attempted to execute Hamm, but couldn’t find a vein to insert the catheter needed for the lethal drugs. At approximately 11:30 p.m., 30 minutes before the death warrant expired, the state called off Hamm’s execution.

If executed, Eggers would be the first inmate to be put to death this year.

There is one other execution already scheduled for 2018: Walter Lee Moody.

Moody is set to die on April 19, and at 83-years-old is the oldest inmate currently on Alabama Death Row., Earlier this year, Moody had his request for a review of his appeal rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. The next day the Alabama Attorney General sought an execution date from the Alabama Supreme Court.

Moody was convicted of killing U.S. 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Robert S. Vance. Vance died Dec. 16, 1989, and his wife, Helen, was seriously injured after the judge opened a package that had been sent to his home, detonating a pipe bomb. A similar bomb killed a lawyer in Atlanta two days later.

Moody was linked to the crimes through a similar bomb nearly two decades earlier that had injured his wife when it exploded. His prosecution in that case led to his resentment of the courts leading up to the 1989 bombings.

https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2018/03/michael_eggers_set_to_die_thur.html

Christopher Price Alabama Execution

Christopher Price was executed by the State of Alabama for the murder of a minister. According to court documents Christopher Price would attack Bill Lynn outside of the home where the minister was stabbed and slashed with a sword. Christopher Price would be executed by lethal injection on March 31, 2019

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An Alabama inmate convicted of stabbing a minister nearly three decades ago died by lethal injection Thursday night, officials said.

Christopher Lee Price’s execution was carried out at 8:12 p.m. ET. at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Bob Horton, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections, said in an email to CNN. Price was pronounced dead at 8:31 p.m. ET, according to Horton.

“Tonight, the family of Pastor Bill Lynn, who was brutally murdered nearly 30 years ago, has finally seen Lynn’s killer face justice,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement.

Marshall said Price was “fighting until the very end to avoid facing the consequences of his heinous crime.”

The execution went ahead after the US Supreme Court narrowly denied a request for a stay from the 46-year-old inmate. Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor dissented. It was the second time the nation’s highest court has addressed Price’s case.

In a narrow decision in April, the Supreme Court ruled that Price’s execution could go forward hours after Price’s death warrant in Alabama had expired.

Price had argued the lethal injection protocol would cause him severe pain and asked that the state use lethal gas as an alternative. Two lower courts agreed to put the execution on hold.

But after Marshall petitioned the Supreme Court, the majority agreed to lift the stay of execution. The court said that Price had waited too long to make his claim.

Death row inmates in Alabama had the choice back in 2018 to elect to “be executed via nitrogen hypoxia” but that Price did not do so, the majority said in the unsigned order.

“He then waited until February 2019 to file this action and submitted additional evidence today, a few hours before his scheduled execution time,” the majority held.

Breyer, joined by the three other liberal justices on the high court, penned a dissent.

Price and an accomplice wielded a sword and a knife in 1991 and stabbed Lynn to death, according to the state attorney general’s office.

“On December 22, 1991, Bill Lynn was wrapping Christmas gifts for his grandchildren when he was ambushed outside his home, slashed and stabbed with a sword dozens of times,” Marshall said in an earlier statement.

“His killer has dodged his death sentence for the better part of three decades by employing much the same strategy he has pursued tonight – desperately clinging to legal maneuverings to avoid facing the consequences of his heinous crime,” the statement said.

Earlier on Thursday, Price released a statement to his victim through his attorneys.

“I am so terribly sorry to the victim and his family for my crime. Neither he nor his family deserved what I did. Nobody deserves that,” he said.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/30/us/christopher-lee-price-execution-alabama/index.html