r/news • u/AudibleNod • 8h ago
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey spares death row inmate, citing doubts about evidence
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alabama-gov-kay-ivey-spares-death-row-inmate-citing-doubts-evidence-rcna604662492
u/aaronhayes26 8h ago
Dude’s been on death row for 30 years and there are doubts about the evidence, and the best they can do is commutation to life?
I say we give this dude a parole hearing.
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u/Equal-Temporary-1326 8h ago
Yeah, if there's doubt about evidence, why not have a judge grant him a new trial instead? It's great that he was taken off death row, but by acknowledging skepticism about evidence, an automatic commutation to life without parole isn't a fair trade off when compared to the right to a new trial with that in mind.
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u/PalehorseFM22 5h ago
This is a common occurrence when there's multiple suspects, say 3 people in a car who conduct a drive-by, or a pair of people who abduct and murder. Everybody claims to be the getaway driver or the accessory.
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u/DocPsychosis 1h ago
The governor can't order that, it's what the appeals process is for. She can either pardon or commute the sentence to a lesser one. And re-prosecuting someone 30 years later is going to be very difficult. What happened to all your witnesses in that time? How many are even alive or able to be found? If there isn't enough evidence now (but maybe there was at the time) simply because a lot of it disintegrated over three decades, do you just shrug and let him off the hook?
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u/Peitho_Noir 8h ago
The bottom of the article notes that a former state attorney general, two past state justices, and several other judges and prosecutors have all recommended a new trial be conducted. My guess is saving face has been more important than ensuring this person wasn’t wrongfully convicted and further deprived of liberty. And yet here we are with a sitting president convicted of 34 counts of felony fraud, no hope of ever being sentenced. The contrast between how these two cases have been handled reproves Wilhoit regarding conservatism: there must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
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u/bimbo_baggins_ 8h ago
If there’s any doubt, we shouldn’t be putting people to death.
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u/transcriptoin_error 8h ago
I agree. And I’ll go further and say that the government should not be putting people to death at all.
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u/Diarygirl 8h ago
I'm very much anti-death penalty and I was talking to some of my neighbors yesterday who are the opposite, and I said "Think about all the times you complain about the government. Do you really trust them to get execution correct? Because I sure as hell don't."
Even its proponents acknowledge that innocent people have been killed.
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u/ruiner8850 8h ago
Even its proponents acknowledge that innocent people have been killed.
Even a single innocent person being murdered by the government is too many. Like you said, it's crazy to me that people trust the government enough to be okay with the death penalty. I wonder how death penalty advocates would feel if they or someone they care about was murdered by the government for a crime they didn't commit?
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u/OlderThanMyParents 4h ago
I have a hard time arguing that someone like Timothy McVeigh shouldn't get put to death. The problem is that if the death penalty is available for people like him, it will inevitably used on people like this - where there is little concrete evidence of actual guilt, but a real desire to punish SOMEONE for the death of a cop.
Hell, at one point, the governor of Illinois commuted everyone on death row after the innocence project had showed there multiple factually innocent people - over 6% - on death row.
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u/swagonflyyyy 7h ago
Yeah, I agree. I don't think the death penalty is an effective mechanism for justice. But assuming all sentences were %100 correct and the executions were carried out flawlessly, would that really stop people from committing crimes?
Judging by the Wild West alone, probably not. People used to get executed about as fast as those criminals killed others.
I think its more of a revenge thing than a justice thing. Maybe it was a crude way to achieve some sense of closure or retribution to victims, but we have better systems in place now, even though they're far from perfect.
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u/Diarygirl 7h ago
I've watched enough true crime shows to know that criminals think they're brilliant and will never be caught.
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u/c-williams88 8h ago
It’s so funny to me how many conservatives flip flop from “I’ll never trust the government” to “the government is perfect and can literally do no wrong” depending on the issue and what party.
The death penalty they love and trust the government completely, but everything else the government is completely incompetent and useless
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u/OlderThanMyParents 4h ago
And remember that the Supreme Court has said repeatedly (most recently in 2022, in Shinn v. Ramirez) that evidence of innocence isn't a barrier to execution. As long as we follow the legal niceties, it's okay to execute someone who's innocent, because people are entitled to know that their justice system works.
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u/Low_Pickle_112 7h ago
It's always wild to me that I'm the dirty rotten big government commie who thinks that the government should be guaranteeing people stuff necessary for living & an efficient civilization like food, housing, education, and healthcare...some rich parasite's yacht money be damned...but then they call themselves "small government" while saying that the government should have the power take a person's life.
Feeding a person is big government and that's bad, but killing someone is small government and that's good. That makes loads of sense.
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u/Diarygirl 5h ago
I've been saying for years that conservatives want a government so small it'll fit in my uterus.
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u/OldConfusions 8h ago
There is no way for there to ever not be any doubt. Junk science, fabricated evidence, genuine mistakes etc. can all make an innocent person look guilty as guilty can be. There is no world in which every case is beyond all doubt. And as long as it's impossible to un-kill someone there is no justice in the death penalty.
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u/Strawbuddy 7h ago
I'd disagree if there's video evidence, a solid paper trail, and incontrovertible proof of guilt. The OKC Murrah Fed bldg bombing investigation was meticulously run, and the FBI produced about 7000lbs of paper evidence, along with all the rock solid physical evidence and the various confessions. Tim McVeigh was caught red-handed, and he was convicted then executed for murdering 168 people(19 kids), and that feels like a clear example of why the death sentence is needed.
Consider former Major and Army Doc Nidal Hasan. He admitted killing 13 people, and reloaded so he could shoot a dozen in the back as they tried to flee. While I don't know of anyone seriously advocating for leniency for genocidal politicians, I can definitely imagine a scenario where their supporters can gain control of legislatures and lobby to have them kept more comfortable, and even quietly released.
'Evil people like mass murderers and serial rapists/molesters probably oughta be put to death so there's no further chance that they or their followers can do it again' doesn't feel like a wild stance, and from there it's just haggling over definitions and degrees of culpability
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u/OldConfusions 6h ago
Now imagine for 3 seconds that tomorrow it's revealed all that evidence was fabricated and the confessions were coerced. How do you compensate a dead man?
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u/DadIsVeryMad 8h ago
Reminder that Kay Ivey is one of the most evil, soulless pieces of shit that walk the earth today.
Fuck this old broad, nothing she does is out of compassion or humanity.
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u/left-of-the-jokers 8h ago
She's probably dying and starting to wonder if she's going to heaven
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u/TenguKaiju 7h ago
She had cancer treatment with chemo and radiation about a year before covid. She’s like 80 years old and still in remission.
Like my grandad always said, ‘you have to find the phylactery first.’
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u/Harry_Mud 8h ago
So many have asked for this man to get a new trial that it should happen. The woman was paid to testify against him which by itself should be a very big red flag!!!!! This man deserves a new trial. It's that simple!
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u/TheBatemanFlex 8h ago edited 4h ago
Why does this fall on the gov? Surely this is a failure of the justice system if that is the case.
Edit: I understand how, I just don’t think whether a potentially innocent person is killed by the state should be at the whim of whomever is governor.
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u/_GregTheGreat_ 8h ago edited 8h ago
I’m anti-death penalty, but I think there’s real value to allow the government to step in and prevent an execution in controversial situations. It’s another check and balance for a system that needs checks and balances
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u/Ordinary-Leading7405 8h ago
Because Kay Ivey supports institutionalization. HBO’s The Alabama Solution details how awful the system is.
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u/farmtownsuit 5h ago
Because the governor has that power to issue pardons and commutations... But I'm assuming you already knew that so maybe you're asking something else?
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u/RockYourAmadeus 8h ago
Days before the midterms, the GOP is scrambling so hard to be seen as 'human' and not soulless monster.
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u/Gloomy-Employment-72 4h ago
Hmmm. I don’t know a thing about his case, the victim, or the convict, but I’ve always thought you had to be guilty beyond reasonable doubt. If there is doubt, should this person not be out of prison?
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u/lyonslicer 1h ago
I don't know the details either, but sometimes advances in science can bring new possible explanations to light. Evidence can be reevaluated or retested in light of new techniques.
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u/NemusSoul 7h ago
Who cares about the context. We didn’t kill someone. That’s a win. Sort the rest out later.
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u/groovyinutah 7h ago
If I was a governor in a southern state I'd be more concerned about being able to successfully execute an inmate...
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u/HeadLikeAFucknOrange 4h ago
The podcast Earwitness covers this story very thoroughly. Highly recommend.
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u/AudibleNod 8h ago
Is that legal? I know there's paid informants by the cops. But paying for testimony seems over the line. Can any lawyer weigh in?