MOBILE, Alabama — More than fifteen years after a Mobile shooting left a young father dead in front of his own car, the man convicted in the killing has once again failed to persuade Alabama’s highest court to give him a shot at parole.
A killing over a domestic dispute
Court records describe how Ronald Curry, now serving life without parole, shot 20-year-old Will Curry through the windshield of his car in 1998. The two men were not related despite sharing a last name. According to case records, the younger Curry had gone to check on his infant son and the child’s mother after learning that Ronald Curry had struck them. As the victim got back into his car to leave, Ronald Curry opened fire, striking him through the chest.
A rejected plea deal changed everything
Ronald Curry originally agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter, a deal that would have left him eligible for parole. He later withdrew that plea and took his chances with a jury, which convicted him of murder instead. Because of a prior federal drug case from 1994 — involving more than a pound of crack cocaine brought back from Miami — the murder conviction triggered Alabama’s Habitual Offender Act, locking in a mandatory sentence of life without the possibility of parole.
Years of appeals
Curry’s legal team spent years trying to have that 1994 federal drug offense reclassified from a Class A felony to a Class C felony, arguing it would change how the habitual offender enhancement applied to his case. A Mobile County circuit judge rejected that argument in 2013, and the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals later declined to intervene as well. His attorney also argued that Curry’s conduct and growth during his time in prison should count in his favor.
Supreme Court declines the case
Curry’s final option was a writ of certiorari asking the Alabama Supreme Court to take a fresh look at the sentencing question. The justices declined, with only one dissenting without a written opinion and another recusing from the case entirely. Barring further legal avenues, Curry will continue serving his life sentence in the 1998 killing with no possibility of parole under the state’s habitual offender law.