Alabama Governor Commutes Death Sentence
For only the second time in over 25 years, an Alabama governor commuted a state prisoner’s death sentence on February 28, 2025. Gov. Kay Ivey (R) took Robin “Rocky” Dion Myers, 63, off death row at Holman Correctional Facility, so he will now spend the rest of his life in prison for the 1991 murder of a neighbor, Ludie Mae Tucker.
Myers has consistently maintained his innocence, which Ivey insisted she wasn’t buying. However, the lack of a murder weapon or any physical evidence tying Myers to the crime left her with “enough questions about Mr. Myers’ guilt that I cannot move forward with executing him,” the governor declared.
After someone stabbed Tucker at her home, she survived long enough to give police a description. But she didn’t name Myers, even though he lived across the street. Nor did her cousin Marie Dutton, who was also in the home at the time and also stabbed. Nevertheless, a jury convicted Myers of the killing and recommended a life sentence. That was overruled by the judge in the case, who sentenced Myers to die, and the state Supreme Court ultimately affirmed that decision. See: Ex parte Myers, 699 So. 2d 1285 (Ala. 1997).
At the time of his commutation, Myers was one of 30 people put on the state’s death row by a judge despite a jury’s recommendation for a lesser sentence. The last condemned prisoner to receive a commutation was Judith Ann Neelly, who was spared by former Gov. Fob James (R) in 1999. It was James who offered a reward for information in the murder of Birmingham cop William Hardy, drawing forward an eyewitness to the crime whose testimony then led to the arrest and conviction of Myers’ fellow death row prisoner, Toforest Johnson; however, the lack of any physical evidence tying him to that crime has prompted calls for a new trial and even a folk song, as reported elsewhere in this issue. [See: PLN, Apr. 2025, p.26.]
Sources: Alabama Reflector, Birmingham News
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