Grant clemency to Robin Myers and change his sentence from death to life without the possibility of parole

Grant clemency to Robin Myers and change his sentence from death to life without the possibility of parole

Started
March 22, 2015
Signatures: 484,376Next Goal: 500,000
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Why this petition matters

Started by Kacey Keeton

 

 

Watch Eboni K. Williams talk about the case here:

 

 

Robin "Rocky" Myers is a 62-year-old intellectually disabled black man who was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in 1994 for a crime he did not commit.

With a vote of 9-to-3, an overwhelmingly white jury in Decatur, Ala., recommended that Robin be sentenced to Life Without the Possibility of Parole. The elected judge presiding over the case overrode the jury and ordered his execution instead.

The United States Supreme Court later found this practice of judicial override to be unconstitutional and struck down Florida's capital sentencing scheme, which allowed override.  Alabama was one of only two states remaining that allowed for such judicial override and it stood alone in giving a judge no guidance in exercising this power. In 2017, the Alabama legislature abolished the practice of judicial override, but failed to make it retroactive. This left over 30 people--including Rocky--on death row, even though a jury had determined they did not belong there.

In the last 15 years, shockingly, Alabama is the only state to ever use judicial override to sentence someone to death. To quote U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, “[I]t approaches the most literal sense of the word ‘arbitrary’ to put one to death in the face of a contrary jury determination where it is accepted that the jury had indeed responsibly carried out its task.”

In all of Rocky’s post-conviction proceedings, he and his counsel have argued that he should not be executed because he is innocent and intellectually disabled. Additionally, Alabama’s decision to execute Rocky is a direct violation of a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found the execution of an intellectually disabled inmate to be cruel and unusual and, therefore, in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. And because Rocky’s counsel abandoned him in the midst of his post-conviction proceedings, these claims have never been fully addressed by any court.

Rocky has no further appellate process available to him, and is subject to receive an execution date at any time. Your signature to this petition is not a vote for his innocence. It is a vote for justice, and one that will hopefully compel the state of Alabama and Gov. Ivey to grant Rocky clemency from an elected judge’s arbitrary decision and allow him to serve the sentence the jury of his peers intended –– Life Without the Possibility of Parole.

To learn more about or to keep up with the status of Rocky's case, please visit www.clemencyforrockymyers.wordpress.com.

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Signatures: 484,376Next Goal: 500,000
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