During this week's broadcast of Alabama Public Television's "Capitol Journal," Attorney General Steve Marshall reiterated his objection to Gov. Kay Ivey's decision to commute the death sentence of convicted murderer Robin "Rocky" Meyers last month.
Marshall had said he was "astonished" and "bewildered" by the decision to commute Meyers's sentence immediately following the Governor's announcement.
Meyers was convicted of capital murder for the 1991 stabbing of his neighbor, 69-year-old Ludie Mae Tucker.
According to Marshall, his objection stemmed from Ivey basing the commutation on a 2025 analysis of a case tried for a crime committed in 1991.
"Fully within the Governor's authority to do it, right?" he said. "That's a power vested with any governor to review the possible commutation of somebody for which execution had been set. This case goes back to 1991. You know, one of the things, at least what you can read — and you know, the only thing I have received is what is in the Governor's written material is they were concerned there were no DNA and no fingerprint evidence."
He continued, "The facts were the defendant charged in this case was in possession on the night of the murder of the VCR of the woman who was killed. It was collateral for a crack cocaine purchase he had made. And he gave multiple conflicting statements of how it came into his possession and when. DNA in 1991 was not the DNA we have now. Recently, I tried a case in Ozark that had genealogy DNA — fascinating technology that allowed for us to be able to solve that case. This was pre-OJ, right? I mean, this is not a time in which we were able to collect DNA for it to be used substantively and forensically in a court of law."
"And so, to use that as criteria, I think, is missing the reality of 1991," he added. "And then second, lack of fingerprint evidence. I mean, Todd, I can't tell you how many cases that I've tried over my career. Only one of those ever had fingerprint evidence. It's not the norm, and it's not common. And it seemed as if the evaluation of this commutation petition was through a lens of 2025 and what it is that we would expect forensically. And that just isn't the reality of the day. We believe the facts of the case itself demonstrated both physical and circumstantial evidence that there was a compelling nature of guilt and that is why we objected to this commutation."
Jeff Poor is the editor-in-chief of 1819 News and host of "The Jeff Poor Show," heard Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-noon on Mobile's FM Talk 106.5. To connect or comment, email [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @jeff_poor.
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