Execution Date Set For Two Alabama Death Row Inmates

Torrey Twane McNabb, left, Jeffrey Lynn Borden

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) – The Alabama Supreme Court has set execution dates for two death row inmates.

Jeffrey Lynn Borden is set to die by lethal injection on Oct. 5.

Borden was convicted of killing his estranged wife, Cheryl Borden, and her father, Roland Harris, during a Christmas Eve gathering in Jefferson County in 1993.

Torrey Twane McNabb is scheduled to be executed on Oct. 19.

McNabb was convicted of killing Montgomery police officer Anderson Gordon in 1997.

Court records show that juries recommended the death sentence by a 10-2 vote in each case and judges agreed.

The state attorney general’s office asked the court to set execution dates for both men earlier this month.

Alabama has executed two death row inmates so far in 2017.

Source: The Associated Press, August 30, 2017

Alabama sets execution dates for 2 inmates; both set to die in October

The Alabama Supreme Court has scheduled October execution dates for 2 death row inmates.

Jeffrey Borden is set to be executed on October 5, and Torrey Twane McNabb on October 19.

The Alabama Attorney General's office had asked the state's highest court earlier this month to set execution dates for 3 inmates-- Borden, McNabb, and Doyle Lee Hamm. No execution date was set for Hamm.

McNabb has spent the last 18 years on death row, after being convicted of fatally shooting Montgomery police officer Anderson Gordon in September 1997. McNabb was convicted on 2 capital murder counts-- 1 for killing Gordon while he was on duty, and 1 for killing him as Gordon sat in his patrol car. McNabb also was found guilty of 2 additional counts of attempted murder.

Borden has been on death row for 22 years, and was convicted of the murders of Cheryl Borden and her father Roland Harris. The murders took place at a family gathering in Gardendale on Christmas Eve 1993. Court records show Borden travelled from Huntsville to Gardendale to bring his 3 children to Cheryl Borden, his legally separate wife and the children's mother. After Cheryl Borden arrived, Jeffrey Borden shot her in the back of her head outside the house in the presence of the children. Borden then shot Roland Harris, his wife's father, in the back as Harris tried to run into the house.

AG Steve Marshall said earlier this month that the state does not anticipate any problems securing enough drugs to execute the men. "Yes, we have the means," he said, when asked if the state would be able to follow through.

John Palombi, Assistant Federal Defender for the Federal Defenders for the Middle District of Alabama who represents both McNabb and Borden, commented on both execution dates:

"It was premature for the Alabama Supreme Court to set an execution date for Mr. McNabb. Mr. McNabb has a pending case in Montgomery Circuit Court challenging the legality of his death sentence after the Supreme Court's decision in Hurst v. Florida... This case was filed long before the State requested an execution date for Mr. McNabb, and the Circuit Court previously indicated that it wanted a hearing on the issue," he said.

"Jeffrey Borden is severely mentally ill, and has been since at least the age of 17, when he sustained a serious head injury that left him in a coma for four days and permanently damaged his judgment and ability to control his impulses. The same principles that exempt the intellectually disabled and people who committed crimes before the age of 18 from being executed apply to cases like Mr. Borden's, where the individual who committed the crime had a diminished ability to control himself or understand the full implications of his actions," Palombi said.

Alabama has executed 2 death row inmates in 2017 - Tommy Arthur on May 25 and Robert Melson on June 8.

Source: al.com, August 31, 2017

⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Comments

Florida executes Michael Tanzi

Florida on Tuesday executed a death row inmate described by one local detective as a "fledgling serial killer" for the murder of a beloved Miami Herald employee. Florida executed Michael Tanzi on Tuesday, 25 years after the murder of beloved Miami Herald employee Janet Acosta, who was attacked in broad daylight on her lunch break in 2000. Michael Tanzi, 48, was executed by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison in Raiford and pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. ET.

South Carolina | Man who ambushed off-duty cop to face firing squad in second execution of its kind

Mikal Mahdi, 48, who was found guilty of killing an off-duty police officer and a convenience store worker, is the second inmate scheduled to executed by South Carolina's new firing squad A murderer who ambushed and shot an off duty police officer eight times before burning his body in a killing spree is set to become the second person to die by firing squad. South Carolina's highest court has rejected the last major appeal from Mikal Mahdi, 41, who is to be put to death with three bullets to the heart at 6pm on April 11 at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia. Mahdi's lawyers said his original lawyers put on a shallow case trying to spare his life that didn't call on relatives, teachers or people who knew him and ignored the impact of weeks spent in solitary confinement in prison as a teen.

Afghanistan | Four men publicly executed by Taliban with relatives of victims shooting them 'six or seven times' at sport stadium

Four men have been publicly executed by the Taliban, with relatives of their victims shooting them several times in front of spectators at a sport stadium. Two men were shot around six to seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the centre of Afghanistan's Badghis province, witnesses told an AFP journalist in the city. The men had been 'sentenced to retaliatory punishment' for shooting other men, after their cases were 'examined very precisely and repeatedly', the statement said. 'The families of the victims were offered amnesty and peace but they refused.'

South Carolina executes Mikal Mahdi

Mikal Mahdi, 42, was executed for the 2004 murder of 56-year-old James Myers A man facing the death penalty for committing two murders was executed by firing squad on Friday, the second such execution in the US state of South Carolina this year. Mikal Mahdi, 42, was executed for the 2004 murder of 56-year-old James Myers, an off-duty police officer, and the murder of a convenience store employee three days earlier. According to a statement from the prison, "the execution was performed by a three-person firing squad at 6:01 pm (2201 GMT)," with Mahdi pronounced dead four minutes later.

Lethal Injection, Electric Chair, or Firing Squad? An Inhumane Decision for Death Row Prisoners

South Carolina resumed executions with the firing squad killing of Brad Sigmon last month. Mikal Madhi’s execution date is days away. The curtain shrieked as it was yanked open to reveal a 67-year-old man tied to a chair. His arms were pulled uncomfortably behind his back. The red bull’s-eye target on his chest rose and fell as he desperately attempted to still his breathing. The man, Brad Sigmon, smiled at his attorney, Bo King, seated in the front row before guards placed a black bag over his head. King said Sigmon appeared to be trying his best to put on a brave face for those who had come to bear witness.

USA | Why the firing squad may be making a comeback

South Carolina plans to execute Mikal Mahdi on Friday for the murder of a police officer, draping a hood over his head and firing three bullets into his heart. The choice to die by firing squad – rather than lethal injection or the electric chair – was Mahdi’s own, his attorney said last month: “Faced with barbaric and inhumane choices, Mikal Mahdi has chosen the lesser of three evils.” If it proceeds, Mahdi’s execution would be the latest in a recent string of events that have put the spotlight on the firing squad as a handful of US death penalty states explore alternatives to lethal injection, by far the nation’s dominant execution method.

I spent 16 years in solitary in South Carolina. This is what it did to me. | Opinion

South Carolinian Randy Poindexter writes about the effects 16 years of solitary confinement had on him ahead of South Carolina’s planned execution of Mikal Mahdi , who spent months in solitary as a young man. For 16 years, I lived in a concrete cell. Twenty-three hours a day, every day, for more than 3,000 days, South Carolina kept me in solitary confinement. I was a young man before I was sent to solitary — angry, untreated and unwell. I made mistakes. But I wasn’t sentenced to madness. That’s what solitary did to me. My mental health worsened with each passing day. At first, paranoia and depression set in. Then, hallucinations and self-mutilation. I talked to people who weren’t there. I cut myself to feel something besides despair. I could do nothing as four of my friends and fellow prisoners took their own lives rather than endure another day of torturous isolation.

Louisiana | Lawyers of Jessie Hoffman speak about their final moments before execution

As Louisiana prepared its first execution in 15 years, a team of lawyers from Loyola Law were working to save Jessie Hoffman’s life. “I was a young lawyer three years out of law school, and Jessie was almost finished with his appeals at that time, and my boss told me we needed to file something for Jessie because he’s in danger of being executed,” Kappel said. Kappel and her boss came up with a civil lawsuit to file that said since they wouldn’t give him a protocol for his execution, he was being deprived of due process, and the lawsuit was in the legal process for the next 10 years.

Arizona | The cruelty of isolation: There’s nothing ‘humane’ about how we treat the condemned

On March 19, I served as a witness to the execution of a man named Aaron Gunches, Arizona’s first since 2022. During his time on death row, he begged for death and was ultimately granted what is likely more appropriately described as an emotionless state-assisted suicide. This experience has profoundly impacted me, leading to deep reflection on the nature of death, humanity, and the role we play in our final moments. When someone is in the end stages of life, we talk about hospice care, comfort, care, easing suffering and humane death. We strive for a “good death” — a peaceful transition. I’ve seen good ones, and I’ve seen bad, unplanned ones.

'No Warning': The Death Penalty In Japan

Stakes for wrongful convictions are high in Japan, where the death penalty has broad public support despite criticism over how it is carried out. Tokyo: Capital punishment in Japan is under scrutiny again after the world's longest-serving death row prisoner, Iwao Hakamada, was awarded $1.4 million in compensation this week following his acquittal last year in a retrial. Stakes for wrongful convictions are high in Japan, where the death penalty has broad public support despite international criticism over how it is carried out.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog