Supreme Court orders temporary stay for Nathaniel Woods in the minutes leading up to his execution in Alabama
By Bill Hutchinson
ABC News
March 5, 2020
In a stunning last-minute move, the Supreme Court ordered a temporary stay in the execution of Nathaniel Woods, who was set to die at 6 p.m. local time Thursday in an Alabama prison.
The order, signed from Justice Clarence Thomas, comes as Woods' supporters contended that he did not directly take part in the slayings of three police officers.
The execution is stayed "pending further order of the undersigned or of the Court."
Woods, 44, was set to die by lethal injection at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama.
Supporters were calling for Gov. Kay Ivey to grant a reprieve. As of Thursday morning, Ivey offered no sign that she would intervene in Williams' case and it appeared the execution would go as planned.
Thomas' order came in the minutes leading up to the execution of Woods, who was convicted of capital murder in the 2004 killings of three Birmingham, Alabama, police officers.
He already requested his final meal of sweet potatoes, spinach, chicken patty, chicken leg quarter, cooked apples, fries, two oranges and orange flavored drink, according to a statement from Alabama Department of Corrections. However, he only took one bite of the chicken and left the rest of his meal untouched, the statement read.
Woods also made calls earlier that day to his father, sister, daughter and mother, as well as friends. His imam was expected to be the only person present at the execution.
The son of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., who had joined a chorus of calls to halt the execution, praised the move.
"Amazing news!! The Supreme Court has issued a stay of execution for Nathaniel Woods!! Great work everyone!" Martin Luther King III wrote on Twitter.
On Tuesday, King sent a letter to Ivey, a Republican, reading, "I stand with hundreds of thousands of Americans across Alabama and the nation, pleading with you not to execute Nathaniel Woods."
In his letter, King, who was born in Alabama, told Ivey her state was "set to kill a man who is very likely innocent."
King told Fox News Thursday, "If a person is innocent they should not be killed in this country. People have been killed and [hanged] for doing nothing. And in this context, if that is the prospect, we ought to at least go through the facts, go through the information, give the system the opportunity to work if it did not work."
As of Thursday afternoon, more than 91,000 people had signed a petition on the website Change.org to stop the execution of Woods, who would become the first person executed in Alabama this year and the 67th since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Woods' alleged accomplice, Kerry Spencer, confessed to being the sole gunman who killed the officers with a high-powered weapon, but separate juries convicted him and Woods of four capital murder charges, including killing the officers in the course of committing another crime.
Spencer's trial was held before Woods' case was heard by a jury, but his execution date has yet to be set.
During both trials, prosecutors presented the juries the theory that Woods and Spencer acted in tandem to lure the officers into the apartment to kill them.
On June 17, 2004, Birmingham police officers Carlos Owen, Harley Chisholm III and Charles Bennett were shot to death while executing a misdemeanor assault warrant for Woods at a suspected crack house in Birmingham. A fourth officer was also shot, but survived and testified against Woods.
A jury convicted Woods in December 2005, and in a nonunanimous verdict of 10-2 recommended a sentence of death.
Alabama State Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement Wednesday that Woods was "correctly found guilty and sentenced to death by a jury of his peers."
"The only injustice in the case of Nathaniel Woods is that which was inflicted on those four policemen that terrible day in 2004," Marshall said in the statement.
Woods appealed his conviction, arguing his lawyer gave him inadequate representation by misinforming him that he could not be convicted of capital murder as an accomplice and convincing him to reject a plea deal prosecutors offered him of 20 to 25 years in prison, according to court records.
Woods' appeal was denied by the Alabama Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
In his letter to Ivey, King stated that Woods "has never had a fair trial" and has not gotten the opportunity to present new evidence since his conviction bolstering his claim that Spencer acted alone and that there was never a plan to lure the officers into an ambush.
The case has also garnered the attention of celebrities like Kim Kardashian West, who has become an advocate for criminal justice reform. She tweeted Thursday, Woods "is scheduled to be executed in Alabama TONIGHT for murders he did NOT commit. Join the broad coalition- including members of the jury and relatives of the victims – in urging @GovernorKayIvey and @AGSteveMarshall to stay Nate’s execution."
EDITOR’S NOTE: Woods has also appealed the 10-2 jury ruling. From the Montgomery Advertiser:
Woods also cited a pending case before the U.S. Supreme Court, Ramos v. Louisiana, challenging non-unanimous jury decisions in death penalty cases, arguing that the decision had direct bearing on his case.
"If the Supreme Court were to hold on Friday that non-unanimous verdicts offend the Fourteenth Amendment as well as the Sixth Amendment, it would be a tragedy if a man sentenced to death on a 10-2 death verdict were executed on Thursday," he said. "With the risk of an unconstitutional execution so high, the equities strongly favor a stay until the opinion is announced."
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