MOBILE, Alabama — A man who spent more than a decade on death row before a judge threw out his conviction was visibly frustrated this week after learning he still would not be released on bond while prosecutors decide how to proceed with his case.
A conviction unraveled by a scathing ruling
The defendant appeared before a Mobile County circuit judge for a status hearing after the same judge issued a lengthy ruling roughly a year earlier granting him a new trial. In that 218-page decision, the judge found serious problems throughout his original 2001 trial, including failures by his own defense attorneys, one of whom was found to have discarded key evidence, and by investigators and prosecutors who did not turn over evidence favorable to the defense. The judge also found that a detective’s trial testimony was false and that the prosecution knew or should have known it at the time. Both the original prosecution and defense teams have denied wrongdoing.
Bail question pushed to November
At this week’s hearing, defense attorneys asked the court to allow their client to post bond for the first time in more than a decade. But an assistant district attorney told the judge prosecutors still needed more time to decide whether they will again seek the death penalty in a retrial, which would affect whether bail is even an option. The judge reset the matter for a hearing in late November.
The defendant’s aunt and legal guardian expressed frustration after the hearing, saying she had expected him to come home and questioning why prosecutors, after so many years, were still not prepared to move forward.
A brutal killing that has stretched on for years
The case stems from the February 2000 killing of a west Mobile man, whose body was found beaten and stabbed more than 100 times in a wooded area, his throat also slashed. Prosecutors originally argued the stabbing followed a racial slur made by the victim, and that the defendant led a group of four people involved in the killing. Three other men were later convicted in connection with the case, with two of them testifying against the man now awaiting retrial.
Defense attorneys say their strategy has shifted since a key prosecution witness recanted testimony in 2010 that she had heard the defendant threaten the victim the night before the killing, a reversal defense attorneys argue undercuts the original theory of the crime.
Victim’s family vows to keep showing up
Family members of the victim, who were present in the courtroom, said they remain confident in the strength of the case against the defendant and described him as unchanged in his demeanor since the original trial more than a decade ago. They said they intend to continue attending hearings through the November bail decision and into a potential retrial expected sometime next year.