MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The Alabama Supreme Court has cleared the way for the execution of a man whose innocence claim is supported by a juror from his trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Justices on Friday authorized the execution of Robin \u201cRocky\u201d Myers, who was convicted in the 1991 killing of his neighbor, Ludie Mae Tucker. The execution will be carried out by nitrogen gas at a date set by the governor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A juror at his 1994 trial is among those urging Gov. Kay Ivey to consider clemency and leave Myers in prison for the rest of his life, instead of sending him to the death chamber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI know he is innocent. They never proved he did it. They never proved he was in the house,\u201d juror Mae Puckett said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press after the court decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kacey Keeton, a lawyer for Myers, said his case is \u201crife with examples of failure.” She said there is no physical evidence linking him to the crime. An earlier lawyer abandoned the case, causing Myers to miss a key 2003 deadline for federal appeals. A prosecution witness has since recanted. And a judge overrode the jury\u2019s wish that he be spared from a death sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor those who support the death penalty, Rocky Myers\u2019s case should give you pause. I believe, without reservation, that Rocky Myers did not commit a murder, but you don\u2019t have to agree with me on that to believe that the death penalty is not appropriate in this case,\u201d Keeton, his attorney, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tucker, 69, was fatally stabbed in her Decatur home in October of 1991. Her cousin, who was also attacked but survived, testified that the doorbell rang during the middle of the night. She heard a man asking about using the telephone. Then she heard Tucker screaming out her name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before she died, Tucker told police that her attacker was a short, stocky Black man but could not identify him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Myers lived across the street with his family. LeAndrew Hood, Myers\u2019 son who was 11 at the time of Tuckers\u2019 death, said they would go buy ice from Tucker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe knew us. She had enough breath to say it was a short, stocky Black man. If it was my father, all she had to do was say it was the man across the street,\u201d Hood said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Puckett said she and a few other jurors had doubts about the allegations. But she feared if the case ended in mistrial, another jury would sentence Myers to death. So, Puckett said she agreed to a compromise \u2014 find him guilty but recommend life in prison. Jurors voted 9-3 that he serve life in prison. However, the judge sentenced Myers to death anyway under Alabama\u2019s now-abolished system<\/a> that let judges decide death sentences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe deck was stacked against him before it ever started. It was just an awful, awful thing, and it still is,\u201d Puckett said of Myers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Earle Schwarz, a lawyer from Tennessee, represented Myers for a time after signing up through a national network of lawyers offering pro bono services. The Tennessee lawyer, who volunteered to work on Myers initial appeals, acknowledged he did not tell Myers when he stopped working on his case, according to court documents. Myers, who reads at a fourth-grade level according to his attorneys, didn\u2019t know his lawyer had left and missed a 2023 deadline to file for a federal habeas corpus petition. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals called it an \u201cinexcusable abandonment\u201d but said Myers should have attempted to figure out what was happening in his case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The U.S. Supreme Court bars the execution of intellectually disabled people. Myers scored a 64 and 71 on IQ tests given when he was an adolescent, and scored 73, on an IQ test given in 2013, according to his lawyers. The state maintains a psychologist in 2006, placed his IQ at 84, a level that would make him eligible for execution. His attorneys said that score is an outlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Alabama attorney general\u2019s office wrote in a court filing that Puckett\u2019s concerns aren\u2019t proof of innocence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe affidavit, read in the light most favorable to Myers, states only that some of the jurors had doubts as to Myers\u2019s guilt \u2014 it does not prove that he was actually innocent or that the trial court erred by overriding the jury\u2019s recommendation,\u201d state lawyers wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Keeton said the only remaining chance for Myers now is clemency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cClemency is designed as a failsafe. If the system fails\u2014as it has repeatedly failed Mr. Myers\u2014clemency is there to save his life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n