Simply three months after his 18th birthday, Casey McWhorter shot and killed Edward Lee Williams, his buddy’s father, in a deliberate theft and homicide. Now, over 30 years after the crime, Alabama plans to execute him.
“I was a very confused kid,” McWhorter, now 49, informed the Related Press in an interview reported this week. “I had some issues going on in my head that I didn’t know how to fix, and the only way I knew to feel acceptance was doing some of the stupid stuff I was doing with the people I was doing it with. I felt like they were family at that point.”
McWhorter’s younger age on the time of the homicide—only a few months shy of the authorized minimal for capital sentencing—has brought about controversy over his impending execution, set for a 30-hour interval beginning Thursday evening. Making the case even murkier, Alabama is certainly one of simply two states the place the authorized age of maturity is nineteen, not 18, that means that McWhorter was technically a minor when he killed Williams.
For that reason, McWhorter’s legal professionals requested the Supreme Court docket twice within the final two weeks to put a keep on his execution and to overview the case.
“Alabama law sets the age of majority at 19 years old, not 18 years. An 18-year-old is thus a minor,” McWhorter’s legal professionals wrote to the Supreme Court docket. They add, “18-year-olds cannot serve on state juries because of their legal status. They can, however, be sentenced to death for a capital offense, even though Alabama law otherwise treats them as juveniles.”
“There is emerging research showing that there is nothing magic about turning 18 when it comes to brain science—18 year olds continue to develop and mature,” they wrote.
The Supreme Court docket denied McWhorter’s request for a keep on Thursday afternoon.
McWhorter was sentenced to loss of life in 1994 for Williams’ homicide. In accordance with courtroom paperwork, McWhorter had deliberate the homicide forward of time, conspiring with two youthful youngsters, together with Williams’ 15-year-old son, to rob Williams’ dwelling earlier than killing him. Finally, Williams was shot practically a dozen occasions by the three youngsters.
Whereas the opposite youngsters who participated within the homicide, each beneath 18, had been sentenced to life in jail for the crime, McWhorter was sentenced to loss of life by a ten–2 jury vote. Notably, Alabama is certainly one of simply three states that don’t require a unanimous jury for a loss of life sentence.
McWhorter’s execution would be the second in Alabama following a four-month-long moratorium on executions within the state. The pause got here after a collection of high-profile botched and failed executions shed scrutiny on the state’s execution procedures. Nevertheless, whereas the state insists that it has improved its course of for killing death-row inmates, the extent of precise reforms stays opaque.
Essentially the most notable, and troubling, change to the state’s execution course of is that the state has shifted from a single execution date to set a “time frame” of a number of days. This shift comes after the state needed to cease a number of executions as a result of jail officers had been unable to efficiently insert an IV line into an inmate sentenced to die by deadly injection earlier than midnight—with makes an attempt resulting in grotesque bodily accidents for inmates.
Main as much as his execution, McWhorter informed the A.P. that he would encourage different younger folks to keep away from making one life-destroying selection as he did. “Anything that comes across them that just doesn’t sit well at first, take a few seconds to think that through,” he stated. “Because one bad choice, one stupid mistake, one dumb decision can alter your life—and those that you care about—forever.”