Alabama governor commutes a death row inmate’s sentence to life in prison

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey commuted the death sentence of Robin “Rocky” Myers to life in prison Friday, saying there were enough questions about his guilt that she could not move forward with his execution.

Ivey said Myers, 63, will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole instead of being executed later this year. Ivey noted that was the sentence jurors recommended at his 1994 trial.

The Republican governor said she is a staunch supporter of the death penalty but “I have enough questions about Mr. Myers’ guilt that I cannot move forward with executing him.”

“In short, I am not convinced that Mr. Myers is innocent, but I am not so convinced of his guilt as to approve of his execution. I therefore must respect both the jury’s decision to convict him and its recommendation that he be sentenced to life without parole,” Ivey said in a statement.

Myers was convicted of capital murder in the 1991 stabbing of Ludie Mae Tucker, 69, at her Decatur home. Myers, who lived across the street from Tucker, has long maintained he is innocent, and a juror at his 1994 trial supported the push for clemency.

The reprieve came over the objections of Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall, who said he was “astonished” by the decision.

Last week the Alabama Supreme Court granted the state attorney general’s request to authorize an execution date for Myers using nitrogen gas. The next step was for Ivey to set that date.

It was the first execution Ivey has stopped since she first took office in 2017. Ivey, who has presided over more than 20 executions, called it “one of the most difficult decisions I’ve had to make as governor.”

“But I pray that the Tucker family may, in some way, find closure and peace knowing this case is closed, and Mr. Myers will spend the rest of his life in prison,” Ivey said.

There were multiple questions surrounding Myers’ case, his attorney had argued. No physical evidence at the scene connected him to the crime. Tucker identified her assailant as a short, stocky Black man but did not name Myers or a neighbor as the attacker even though they had met several times, according to Myers’ son. Jurors voted 9-3 that he serve life in prison. However, the judge sentenced Myers to death under Alabama’s now-abolished system that let judges decide death sentences.

Ivey said there was “circumstantial evidence” against Myers, but it is “riddled with conflicting evidence from seemingly everyone involved.” Much of the state’s case involved a VCR taken from Tucker’s home and whether Myers was the person who brought it to a drug house to sell, according to court records.

“God is answering prayers,” juror Mae Puckett, who now believes Myers is innocent and had urged Ivey to intervene.

“Governor Ivey put it back into the jury’s hands,” Puckett wrote.

Kacey Keeton, a lawyer for Myers, had said that there were multiple failures in Myers case, including how an earlier attorney abandoned his case, causing him to miss a deadline to raise issues in federal court. Myers, who is a Black, was convicted by a nearly all-white jury.

“I’m not sure there are words enough to convey my joy, relief, and gratitude at learning of Gov. Ivey’s decision to commute Mr. Myers’s sentence,” Keeton wrote in an email.

“I have represented Mr. Myers since 2007. As evidence accumulated of his innocence and the many injustices he experienced over the course of his case, I held out hope that he would someday see some measure of justice, of mercy, of humanity.”

The last time an Alabama governor commuted a death sentence was in 1999.

Marshall sent the governor a letter Thursday disputing the innocence claim and urging her to let the execution go forward.

“I am astonished by Governor Ivey’s decision to commute the death sentence of Rocky Myers and am bewildered that she chose not to directly communicate with me about this case or her decision,” Marshall said Friday in a statement.

He added that his staff “will go home tonight deeply saddened, not for themselves, but for the family of Ludie Mae Tucker.”