This Alabama Department of Corrections photo shows inmate Joe Nathan James Jr. Terryln Hall said the family opposed Alabama’s plan to execute the man convicted of killing their mother.
Alabama Department of Corrections / AP
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Alabama Department of Corrections / AP
This Alabama Department of Corrections photo shows inmate Joe Nathan James Jr. Terryln Hall said the family opposed Alabama’s plan to execute the man convicted of killing their mother.
Alabama Department of Corrections / AP
MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Alabama is set to execute a man Thursday night who was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend nearly three decades ago, despite the victim’s family demanding his life be spared.
Joe Nathan James Jr is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at 6 p.m. CDT at a southern Alabama jail. James was convicted and sentenced to death in the 1994 shooting at Faith Hall, 26, in Birmingham. Hall’s daughters say they want James to serve a life sentence. But Alabama Governor Kay Ivey said Wednesday that she intends to let the execution proceed.
Prosecutors said James briefly dated Hall and became obsessed after she rejected him, stalking and harassing her for months before killing her. On August 15, 1994, after Hall went shopping with a friend, James attempted to enter the friend’s apartment, pulled a gun from his belt, and shot Hall three times, according to court documents. judgment.
A Jefferson County grand jury first convicted James of murder in 1996 and voted to recommend the death penalty, which a judge imposed. The conviction was overturned when a state appeals court ruled a judge had falsely admitted several police reports as evidence. James was retried and again sentenced to death in 1999, when jurors rejected defense claims that he was being mentally raped at the time of the shooting. .
Hall’s two daughters, who were 3 and 6 years old when their mother was killed, said they recently wanted James to serve life in prison.
“I just felt like we couldn’t play God. We couldn’t take our lives. And it wouldn’t bring my mother back,” one of the daughters, Terryln Hall, told The Associated Press in an interview. recent phone call.
“We thought about it and prayed about it, and we found in ourselves to forgive him for what he did. We really wish there was something we could do to help him. stop it,” says Hall, adding that the road to forgiveness is long. .
“I hated him. I did. And I know hate is such a strong feeling word, but I really have hate in my heart. As I got older and realized, you can’t go. You still have to live and when I’ve got kids of my own, you know, I can’t pass it on to my children and let them walk around with hate in my heart “, she said.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall urged Ivey to proceed with the execution, writing that “it is our duty to ensure that justice is done for the people of Alabama.”
“The jury in James’ case unanimously decided that his brutal murder of Faith Hall should receive a death sentence,” Marshall said.
In response to a reporter’s question, Ivey said Wednesday that she would not interfere.
“My staff and I have studied all the records and all the facts and there is no reason to change the procedure or modify the outcome. The execution will continue,” she said.
James acted as his own attorney in an attempt to prevent his execution, filing a handwritten lawsuit and notifying the court of appeal from the death penalty. A lawyer on Wednesday filed the latest appeal to the US Supreme Court on his behalf.
James asked the judges to stay, noting the Hall family’s objections and arguing that Alabama had not adequately informed the inmates of their right to choose an alternative method of execution.
He argued that Alabama officials, after legislators approved nitrogen hypoxia as a new method of execution, gave inmates only a short window of time to choose the new method and the prisoners had no idea what was at stake when they were given a choice slip without any explanation. Alabama does not schedule executions for prisoners who have chosen nitrogen. The state has not yet developed a system for using nitrogen to execute the death penalty.
