A man who spent nearly a decade and a half on Alabama’s Death Row walked out of the Mobile County Metro Jail a free man this week, becoming the second condemned inmate in the state released within a single month after his case unraveled on appeal.
William Ziegler, now 39, had been awaiting execution since his 2001 conviction in the killing of Russell Allen Baker near a home in Mobile County. After exhausting his standard appeals, Ziegler pursued a rarely successful legal avenue, taking his case directly back to the trial judge rather than through the usual appellate channels, and won a new trial roughly three years ago.
The judge who reviewed the original case, though she had not presided over the 2001 trial herself, later issued an extensive written order cataloging a long list of errors and shortcomings in how the case had originally been handled, ultimately clearing the way for the conviction to be overturned.
Prosecutors initially signaled they intended to retry Ziegler and again pursue the death penalty, reaffirming that position as recently as last November. But this week, with a new trial looming, Ziegler instead accepted a plea agreement, pleading guilty to aiding and abetting murder rather than facing a second capital trial.
Mobile County Circuit Judge Sarah Stewart sentenced Ziegler to the 15 years and 50 days he had already spent behind bars, clearing the way for his immediate release. He left the jail shortly before 4 p.m. Thursday.
Addressing Ziegler directly from the bench, the judge urged him to recognize the rare second chance the outcome represented and cautioned him against carrying bitterness forward. She reminded him that the world he was returning to looks vastly different from the one he left a decade and a half earlier.
The victim’s aunt, who had followed the case for years, shared her reaction to the release outside the courtroom, describing the mix of emotions that come with watching a case reach an unexpected resolution after so long. Ziegler’s attorney and his mother also spoke publicly following the release, reflecting on the yearslong legal fight to overturn the original conviction.
The case adds to a small but notable wave of Death Row reversals in Alabama this year, as post-conviction challenges continue to surface long-standing questions about how capital cases were investigated and tried in the years surrounding Ziegler’s original conviction. Legal observers say such direct appeals to trial judges rarely succeed, making the outcome in this Mobile County case especially unusual.