MOBILE, Ala. — Mobile County prosecutors on Thursday dropped a receiving stolen property charge against William John Ziegler, a 51-year-old Mobile man who spent more than a decade on Alabama’s death row before a judge threw out his capital murder conviction in 2013.
The charge, which stemmed from a boat stolen in 2023, was dismissed during a hearing before Mobile County Circuit Judge Vicki Davis on Thursday, Oct. 29. Ziegler’s attorney, Jeff Deen, had argued that his client could not be convicted of receiving the same boat he had already been convicted of stealing in Mississippi, where Ziegler served time for the theft.
With the Alabama case closed, Ziegler remains under parole supervision for his Mississippi conviction.
Defense: ‘It was beating a dead horse’
Deen told the court that because Ziegler had already been convicted and served time in Mississippi for theft of the boat, he could not also be convicted in Mobile County of receiving it as stolen property. In support of that argument, Deen cited a 1980 decision from the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s intermediate appellate court for criminal cases.
According to Deen, Davis questioned whether pursuing the charge made sense given the time Ziegler had already served for the same boat.
“Judge Davis kind of questioned the judicial – best word to put it – judicial economy of doing that,” Deen said. “He’s already done three years in prison. He’s on parole. It was beating a dead horse, and the prosecutor wisely decided to go ahead and dismiss the case.”
“Judicial economy” is a term courts and lawyers use for the efficient use of limited court time and public resources. Prosecutors have broad discretion to decide whether to pursue or withdraw a charge, and a dismissal before trial ends the case without any finding of guilt or innocence.
Theft versus receiving stolen property
Theft and receiving stolen property are related but distinct crimes. Theft generally involves taking someone else’s property without permission, while receiving stolen property generally involves knowingly receiving, keeping or disposing of property that has already been stolen. In Alabama, as in many states, the degree of a receiving stolen property charge, and whether it is a felony or a misdemeanor, depends largely on the value of the property involved.
Because the two offenses are aimed at different conduct – the person who takes property and the person who later traffics in it – courts have long grappled with whether the same person can be punished for both stealing an item and receiving it. Deen’s argument in Ziegler’s case rested on that question, and he pointed the court to the 1980 appellate ruling as precedent. Prosecutors ultimately chose to dismiss the charge rather than litigate the issue.
Further details about the 2023 boat theft and the Mississippi case were not immediately available.
A capital murder conviction thrown out
Ziegler’s name is familiar to many in Mobile’s legal community because of his earlier capital murder case, which became an example of how a death sentence can unravel years after trial.
That case stemmed from the stabbing death of Russell Allen Baker Jr. at the Peach Place Inn apartments on Leroy Stevens Road in Mobile in February 2000. Ziegler was convicted of capital murder and sent to death row, where he spent more than 10 years.
In 2013, then-Mobile County Circuit Judge Sarah Stewart ruled that Ziegler had received ineffective legal representation from his original lawyers and threw out the conviction. Stewart, who presided over Ziegler’s post-appeal legal challenge, wrote a 218-page order concluding that the criminal justice system had failed him at every turn.
Among her findings:
- Ziegler’s trial lawyers offered only a cursory defense.
- One of his attorneys threw away key evidence that could have allowed the defense to make a compelling argument that one of Ziegler’s co-defendants used his car to move Baker or Baker’s body.
- Prosecutors and law enforcement investigators failed to turn over key evidence to the defense.
After the conviction was vacated, Ziegler pleaded guilty to murder as part of a deal that allowed him to end his prison term with a sentence of time served.
Stewart later won election to the Alabama Supreme Court and now serves as the court’s chief justice.
How post-conviction challenges work
A criminal conviction in Alabama is first reviewed through a direct appeal, in which higher courts examine the trial record for legal errors. Once those appeals are exhausted, a defendant may file a post-conviction petition in the trial court, generally under Rule 32 of the Alabama Rules of Criminal Procedure. Those proceedings allow a judge to consider claims that were not, or could not be, raised at trial or on direct appeal, such as whether the defendant’s lawyers performed adequately or whether evidence was withheld.
Two long-standing U.S. Supreme Court rulings frame those kinds of claims:
- Ineffective assistance of counsel. Under Strickland v. Washington (1984), a defendant must show that his lawyer’s performance fell below an objective standard of reasonableness and that the deficient performance affected the outcome of the case.
- Withheld evidence. Under Brady v. Maryland (1963), prosecutors must disclose evidence favorable to the defense that is material to guilt or punishment. Failing to do so can be grounds to overturn a conviction.
Stewart’s 2013 order found problems on both fronts – the performance of Ziegler’s own defense team and the failure of the prosecution and investigators to turn over evidence.
When a conviction is vacated, the state may retry the defendant, dismiss the case or negotiate a plea. In Ziegler’s case, the outcome was a guilty plea to the lesser offense of murder and a time-served sentence, which ended his prison term without a new trial.
What happens next
Thursday’s dismissal closes the Mobile County receiving stolen property case. Ziegler is not facing any further charges in that matter.
He will, however, continue to be supervised on parole for the Mississippi conviction related to the theft of the boat. Parole allows a person to serve the remainder of a sentence in the community under conditions set by the paroling authority, and a violation of those conditions can result in a return to prison.
Ziegler’s long journey through the courts – from a death sentence in a 2000 killing, to the 2013 order finding that the system had failed him, to a plea and release, and now to the dismissal of a charge over a stolen boat – spans more than a quarter century of litigation in Mobile County.
About the courts involved
The Mobile County Circuit Court is Alabama’s court of general jurisdiction for the county and hears felony criminal cases, including capital murder prosecutions and receiving stolen property charges at the felony level. Circuit judges are elected to six-year terms.
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, whose 1980 ruling Deen relied on, hears appeals in criminal cases from the state’s circuit courts, including automatic review in death penalty cases. Its published decisions serve as binding precedent for Alabama trial courts unless overruled by the Alabama Supreme Court.
The Alabama Supreme Court, which Stewart now leads as chief justice, is the state’s highest court and has the final word on questions of Alabama law.
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