The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals has upheld the capital murder conviction of a 37-year-old Mobile man who was found guilty last year in the shooting death of Ronnie Minifield, rejecting his argument that he should have been allowed to present a self-defense claim to the jury.
Alwin Javon Tillman was convicted in Mobile County Circuit Court in February 2017 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The case was tried by the Mobile County District Attorney’s office. After his conviction, Tillman appealed, arguing the trial court erred by not instructing jurors on self-defense.
In a ruling issued Friday, Feb. 9, the appellate court disagreed, finding that Tillman was the initial aggressor in the confrontation that led to Minifield’s death and was therefore not legally entitled to a self-defense jury instruction. Under Alabama law, a defendant who initiates a violent encounter generally forfeits the right to claim self-defense unless he first withdraws from the confrontation and communicates that withdrawal to the other party.
The decision affirms both Tillman’s conviction and his sentence, closing off one of the primary avenues he had to overturn the verdict. Capital murder convictions in Alabama carry a mandatory sentence of either life without parole or death, depending on the circumstances of the case and the jury’s findings during sentencing.
The appeal was handled on behalf of the state by the Alabama Attorney General’s Criminal Appeals Division, which argued for the conviction to be affirmed. The case is one of many capital murder appeals the division reviews each year from convictions handed down in circuit courts across the state, including Mobile County.
Tillman’s case now moves through the standard post-conviction process, which can include a request for rehearing before the Court of Criminal Appeals or a further appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court, though such requests are not always granted.
Mobile County has seen a steady stream of capital murder prosecutions in recent years, and appellate rulings like this one help set the legal standards trial courts rely on when instructing juries in future cases involving claims of self-defense.