PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am grateful to 'Authory' a valuable service which creates a portfolio of all of my posts since I fired my first post into the cybersphere on the Charles Smith Blog on September 29, 2007, some 17 years ago. Today's post is number 11, 784 Yikes! Yes, this is a compulsion, but it's a healthy one ! One of the best features of 'Authory' (which I am trying out on the Blog for the first time, is a search engine for the portfolio which makes it easier for readers to follow the many important cases, issues and developments (and occasional rants) in the area of flawed pathology, flawed pathologists, and whatever else might cross my mind in jurisdictions throughout the world which are at the heart of the Blog. So, dear reader, you can access the portfolio at the following link. Just type the inquiry into the search box at the following link, and hit enter. (The search box is on the top write side of the page under 'Read more.' Why not try it out, and, as encouraging use of this search function by my readers is rather new to me, any feedback on how it is working would be appreciated at: hlevy15@gmail.com. Cheers!
https://authory.com/HaroldLevy
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY: "“For those who support the death penalty, Rocky Myers’s case should give you pause. I believe, without reservation, that Rocky Myers did not commit a murder, but you don’t have to agree with me on that to believe that the death penalty is not appropriate in this case,” Keeton, his attorney, said."
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "“The deck was stacked against him before it ever started. It was just an awful, awful thing, and it still is,” Puckett said of Myers.Earle Schwarz, a lawyer from Tennessee, represented Myers for a time after signing up through a national network of lawyers offering pro bono services. The Tennessee lawyer, who volunteered to work on Myers initial appeals, acknowledged he did not tell Myers when he stopped working on his case, according to court documents. Myers, who reads at a fourth-grade level according to his attorneys, didn’t know his lawyer had left and missed a 2023 deadline to file for a federal habeas corpus petition. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals called it an “inexcusable abandonment” but said Myers should have attempted to figure out what was happening in his case."
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STORY: “‘He is innocent’: Juror urges clemency for Alabama man facing execution,” by Reporter Kim Chandler, published by The Associated Press, on February 22, 2025.
GIST: “The Alabama Supreme Court has cleared the way for the execution of a man whose innocence claim is supported by a juror from his trial.
Justices on Friday authorized the execution of Robin “Rocky” Myers, who was convicted in the 1991 killing of his neighbor, Ludie Mae Tucker. The execution will be carried out by nitrogen gas at a date set by the governor’s office.
A juror at his 1994 trial is among those urging Gov. Kay Ivey to consider clemency and leave Myers in prison for the rest of his life, instead of sending him to the death chamber.
“I know he is innocent. They never proved he did it. They never proved he was in the house,” juror Mae Puckett said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press after the court decision.
Kacey Keeton, a lawyer for Myers, said his case is “rife with examples of failure.” She said there is no physical evidence linking him to the crime. An earlier lawyer abandoned the case, causing Myers to miss a key 2003 deadline for federal appeals. A prosecution witness has since recanted. And a judge overrode the jury’s wish that he be spared from a death sentence.
“For those who support the death penalty, Rocky Myers’s case should give you pause. I believe, without reservation, that Rocky Myers did not commit a murder, but you don’t have to agree with me on that to believe that the death penalty is not appropriate in this case,” Keeton, his attorney, said.
The crime
Tucker, 69, was fatally stabbed in her Decatur home in October of 1991. Her cousin, who was also attacked but survived, testified that the doorbell rang during the middle of the night. She heard a man asking about using the telephone. Then she heard Tucker screaming out her name.
Before she died, Tucker told police that her attacker was a short, stocky Black man but could not identify him.
Myers lived across the street with his family. LeAndrew Hood, Myers’ son who was 11 at the time of Tuckers’ death, said they would go buy ice from Tucker.
“She knew us. She had enough breath to say it was a short, stocky Black man. If it was my father, all she had to do was say it was the man across the street,” Hood said.
Puckett said she and a few other jurors had doubts about the allegations. But she feared if the case ended in mistrial, another jury would sentence Myers to death. So, Puckett said she agreed to a compromise — find him guilty but recommend life in prison. Jurors voted 9-3 that he serve life in prison. However, the judge sentenced Myers to death anyway under Alabama’s now-abolished system that let judges decide death sentences.
“The deck was stacked against him before it ever started. It was just an awful, awful thing, and it still is,” Puckett said of Myers.Earle Schwarz, a lawyer from Tennessee, represented Myers for a time after signing up through a national network of lawyers offering pro bono services. The Tennessee lawyer, who volunteered to work on Myers initial appeals, acknowledged he did not tell Myers when he stopped working on his case, according to court documents. Myers, who reads at a fourth-grade level according to his attorneys, didn’t know his lawyer had left and missed a 2023 deadline to file for a federal habeas corpus petition. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals called it an “inexcusable abandonment” but said Myers should have attempted to figure out what was happening in his case.
The U.S. Supreme Court bars the execution of intellectually disabled people. Myers scored a 64 and 71 on IQ tests given when he was an adolescent, and scored 73, on an IQ test given in 2013, according to his lawyers. The state maintains a psychologist in 2006, placed his IQ at 84, a level that would make him eligible for execution. His attorneys said that score is an outlier.
The Alabama attorney general’s office wrote in a court filing that Puckett’s concerns aren’t proof of innocence.
“The affidavit, read in the light most favorable to Myers, states only that some of the jurors had doubts as to Myers’s guilt — it does not prove that he was actually innocent or that the trial court erred by overriding the jury’s recommendation,” state lawyers wrote.
Keeton said the only remaining chance for Myers now is clemency.
“Clemency is designed as a failsafe. If the system fails—as it has repeatedly failed Mr. Myers—clemency is there to save his life,” she said."
The entire story can be ready at:
https://apnews.com/article/alabama-death-penalty-robin-rocky-myers-f69bfe8b3df1d057f3954e90b77463e0
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;