Alabama man appeals 1991 murder conviction, citing attorney’s ties to KKK

A former Alabama death row inmate is seeking a new trial after finding evidence that his trial attorney was affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan.

Robin "Rocky" Myers, whose death sentence was commuted to life in prison by Gov. Kay Ivey last year, says in his appeal that John Mays, who represented him at his trial for the murder of Ludi Mae Tucker in 1991, did work for KKK officials in the 1970s and '80s and spoke at their events.

"In violation of his right to the assistance of conflict-free counsel, Mr. Myers, a Black man, was represented at trial by John Mays, who had demonstrably deep ties with the Klan for two decades leading up to this representation of Mr. Myers," said the appeal, filed in Morgan County Circuit Court.

Leah Nelson, a researcher who is assisting with the appeal filed by Myers, used a website that aggregates news articles to find instances of Mays speaking at Klan rallies.

According to the court filings, Mays did legal work for Klan officials and spoke at nine KKK rallies between 1977 and 1981. According to a Sept. 10, 1977 newspaper article from the Suffolk News-Herald in Suffolk, Virginia, Mays said at one rally before 200 people, "You hear a lot about the civil rights of n------ and the civil rights of murderers and of every kind of pervert known to humanity ... but what about the civil rights of the decent law-abiding white man or the law-abiding Black man, for that matter?"

Messages seeking comment were left with Mays last week. It is unclear if Mays has an attorney. Nelson said she spoke with Mays in 2025 for 90 minutes, and Mays denied he had any involvement with the Klan.

"There are so many newspaper articles that say otherwise that I just do not believe him," Nelson said. "I have weighed the evidence in my brain in judgment, and see that all of these contemporary news articles say he was speaking at Klan rallies and cross burnings, and some of them say he declared his allegiance openly."

The Morgan County District Attorney's office opposes the move for a new trial, arguing that Myers should have known about Mays' activities and that those should have been part of previous appeals.

"Petitioner has not met the pleading standards for this claim, as he has not and cannot allege that the outcome of petitioner's case would have been different," wrote Courtney Schellack, assistant district attorney for Morgan County, in a court filing. "He has not met the pleading standard for a newly discovered evidence claim."

A message was sent to the Morgan County DA's office seeking comment.

The filing is the latest in a three-decade-long legal saga. Myers, who was convicted in 1994 of Tucker's death, was accused of stabbing Tucker after entering her house and getting into an argument with her cousin and husband.

A jury recommended that Myers be sentenced to life in prison, but a judge overrode the recommendation and imposed the death penalty.

Myers has maintained his innocence. While he lived across the street from Tucker, he said he never entered her house and only waved to Tucker from the street. No murder weapon was ever found, and no physical evidence linked Myers to the scene. Witnesses gave conflicting descriptions of the attacker.

"Mr. Myers' conviction is based on nothing but circumstantial evidence from witnesses who gave multiple different accounts, witnesses whose testimony was contradicted by other evidence," J. Mitchell McGuire, the attorney for Myers, wrote in the filing.

Ivey cited concerns over the evidence in commuting Myers' sentence.

"I am not convinced that Mr. Myers is innocent, but I am not so convinced of his guilt as to approve of his execution," the governor said in a statement after commuting Myers' sentence last year.

According to Myers' appeal filing, Mays represented Robert Shelton, a KKK imperial wizard, in a lawsuit against the FBI in August 1977.

Myers' attorneys also noted that he traveled to Florida with Shelton in September 1977 to teach parents who opposed desegregation how to file lawsuits on behalf of their children.

The filing also states that Mays spoke at rallies held by the Klan in Alabama, Florida, Virginia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee.

The final known appearance by Mays at a Klan rally was in August 1981 at Lake City, Tennessee where he "exhorted caucasians to band together in the face of an oncoming race war," according to an Aug. 6, 1981 article in The La Follette Press in La Follette, Tennessee.

Miriam Bankston, chief investigator for the Federal Defenders for the Middle District of Alabama, the organization that is handling Myers' appeal, said Mays made inappropriate remarks about Myers during his original trial.

"Even the remarks that he made in his opening statement where he referred to Rocky as a 'street person,' where he referred to the town he lived in as 'crack town,' those kinds of things," she said. "The language was very inflammatory if this is the person you are representing and this is how you are talking about them."

If Myers' petition is successful, the court will grant a hearing to hear from the opposing parties, and can grant a new trial to begin the process over again.

According to the Morgan County District Attorney's Office, this is the third time that Myers filed an appeal to seek another trial.

Source: timesfreepress.com, Ralph Chapoco, March 23, 2026

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

— Oscar Wilde

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