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As clock ticks toward another Trump presidency, federal death row prisoners appeal for clemency

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President-elect Donald Trump’s return to office is putting a spotlight on the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, which houses federal death row. In Bloomington, a small community of death row spiritual advisors is struggling to support the prisoners to whom they minister.  Ross Martinie Eiler is a Mennonite, Episcopal lay minister and member of the Catholic Worker movement, which assists the homeless. And for the past three years, he’s served as a spiritual advisor for a man on federal death row.
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Alabama | Former HPD officer in court, state seeking death penalty

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McCoy is charged with capital murder in the Jan. 7 shooting death of Courtney Spraggins, his 24-weeks pregnant girlfriend. At the time of the murder, McCoy was a Huntsville Police Department officer. He has since been fired.

Former Huntsville Police Department Officer David McCoy made his 1st court appearance on Friday since being charged with capital murder.

McCoy was in a Madison County courtroom today dressed in a jail uniform.

McCoy is accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend, 26-year-old Courtney Spraggins in mid-January. McCoy was off-duty at the time and the murder occurred at the Weston Ranch Apartments.

Madison County District Attorney Tim Gann said that the prosecution is seeking the death penalty.

“You’ve got a young woman who has her life ahead of her and an unborn child,” Gann said. “This is clearly a case we will seek the death penalty on.”

According to investigators, McCoy admitted to shooting Spraggins, but doesn’t remember how the event unfolded. McCoy said that he remembers firing the gun, running into his apartment, changing his clothes and hiding the gun in the top drawer of his dresser.

McCoy then called the non-emergency number saying that he heard gunshots in the area. Officers arrived to the scene minutes later and found Spraggins slumped over in the front seat of her car with a gunshot wound to the head.

“I watched the body cam footage of the officers on scene,” Gann said. “Nothing but professionalism. It took them about 30 minutes to figure out something wasn’t just right.”

McCoy claimed that he had never seen Spraggins before, but officers soon found a picture of McCoy in Spraggins’ car. Officers then took McCoy into custody.

Prosecutors plan to seek two more capital murder charges against McCoy.

In the interview, according to investigators McCoy says that he did it.

McCoy’s defense attorney Brian Clark said McCoy did not state he did it on purpose and it could have been an accident.

Source: WSFA news, Staff, January 29, 2022


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