A bag of midazolam, a sedative used in Alabama’s method of lethal injection. A panel held by civil rights groups discussed inequities in the death penalty. (Getty Images))
LeAndrew Hood’s life changed at age 13, thanks to a single phrase from a judge.
He doesn’t remember much about the proceedings but understood all too well what it meant for his family.
“I went to a couple of them,” Hood said. “I remember the judge telling me that my testimony didn’t count because I was not of age. To be honest I can’t remember everything, but I just remember seeing my dad and him realizing that it was over.”
It was then that the judge sentenced his father, Robin “Rocky” Myers to death row after he was convicted of the murder of Ludie May Tucker in 1991, doing so even though members of the jury had voted to give him a life sentence.
Hood was sent to Decatur by his mother to separate him from his stepfather when he was 14 years old, and she then joined him three years later. Without his father’s support, Hood said, he struggled.
“He missed me getting married,” Hood said. “He missed my wife having both my children. He missed out on me becoming a good man, becoming the person he has never been, and I know he always wanted to see his son and daughters gradually come up and do good, and be the person he raised us to be.”
Myers’ case was the focus of a panel last week sponsored by the ACLU of Alabama and the Alabama Post-Conviction Relief Project (APCRP), which assists people on death row obtain legal assistance for their appeals, on the death penalty and criminal justice. Hood was a speaker.
Tucker was stabbed and killed in October 1991 by a man who, according to information taken from Myers’ appeal in federal district court, had entered the residence claiming he had been hurt in a collision and wanted to use the phone. According to Marie Dutton, a cousin of Tucker’s who was also stabbed in the attack, Tucker’s husband and the person got into an argument, leading to the stabbings. Tucker died a few hours later in the hospital.
Myers was indicted for Tucker’s death in December 1991 and convicted of capital murder in January 1994.
Myers has never admitted to killing Tucker and said he was not at the scene when the incident happened.
Myers lived in a house across the street from Tucker, who visited her to ask for ice to cool drinks for his children. He had never entered her residence, but the two would wave to one another from across the street, according to Myers’ account.
A video cassette recorder was taken from the home during the attack. According to information taken from Myers’ appeal, one witness claimed that he saw a short, stocky Black man dressed in dark clothing coming from the area of Tucker’s home.
Law enforcement arrested Myers because of a probation violation and then interviewed him about Tucker’s death.
Myers, who was asked about the VCR, denied stealing it. But he later admitted to finding it and trading the VCR for drugs the night of Tucker’s murder.
Myers said he was trying to find money to cover an earlier drug purchase to police during his interview. When arriving at the house, Myers said he saw the police at the Tucker home. He found a VCR, got nervous, and hid it under a crawl space under his home. He then went to the Madden residence to purchase drugs with the money he borrowed from his mother-in-law.
Realizing that he had the VCR at home, Myers said he used the VCR to make the trade.
Local criminal justice reform advocates used Myers’ case as an example for why they believe the practice should be abolished.
“Rocky’s (Myers) case is unique, one is that he is innocent, and there are so many issues that led to an innocent man getting incarcerated,” said Miriam Bankston, a social worker working with people on death row who was one of the members who was part of the panel.
The jury, by a vote of 9-3 recommended a life sentence but Morgan County Circuit Court Judge Claude Bennett McRae overruled the recommendation and imposed the death penalty.
Myers’ attorneys argue the attorneys at his first trial failed to cross-examine witnesses and did not object to evidence presented to the court that they characterized as irrelevant or prejudicial.
“Trial counsel failed to investigate and discover that Mr. Myers had been interrogated on at least one prior occasion and that interrogation had not been memorialized in any way,” the writ stated. “Trial counsel also failed to discover that Mr. Myers had been questioned on a third occasion without having been properly Mirandized.”
Myer’s attorneys also argue his trial attorneys met with him on only a handful of occasions, with records indicating that one of his attorneys spent slightly less than four hours interviewing him between the time he was appointed as counsel.
“Given Mr. Myers’ limited education, prior drug use and faulty memory, it is highly unlikely that Mr. Myers’ could have given much useful information to his attorneys nearly two years after the crime,” the writ states. “Similarly, trial counsel did not sufficiently meet with Mr. Myers’ family prior to trial, despite the fact that Mr. Myers’ wife, child, brother-in-law, mother-in-law and other relatives possessed information that would have been useful to Mr. Myers’ defense.”
Myers’ defense team also alleges prosecutors did not tell the defense counsel that witnesses may have been paid in exchange for their testimony. According to the appeal, an investigator working for the attorney of another man police were investigating for the murder hinted at a $5,000 reward for one witness.
Myers’ appeal states that information should have been disclosed but wasn’t, which amounts to a constitutional violation.
LeAndrew Hood listens to colleagues on a panel at an event on Thursday, October 10, 2024 that highlighted concerns with the death penalty. Hood’s father, Rocky Myers, is on death row even though the jury recommended he be sentenced to life in prison. (Ralph Chapoco/Alabama Reflector)
“The state’s failure to disclose or clarify the situation regarding the $5,000 reward violated Mr. Myers’ due process and fair trial rights and entitles him to a new trial, or, in the alternative, a remand to the trial court to clarify the record,” his appeal states.
Myers’ legal team also accused police of deceiving him into giving incriminating statements. At one point during the interrogation, they say, police officers told Myers that they had lifted fingerprints at the scene and that he should tell them “about it and how his prints would have gotten there.”
That led to Myers admitting to having been at the victim’s house even though his fingerprints had never been found at the scene.
Myers’ appeal states that Myers was coerced into admitting he was at the scene. He maintains he was not at the scene.
“Over the course of the next several hours, the police continued to interrogate Mr. Myers, who only has an eighth-grade education, was likely in withdrawal from crack and was never offered anything to eat or drink,” the appeal states.
Speakers at the event said the Myers case shows how the death penalty falls disproportionately on communities of color.
“Statistically, if you are Black, you are more likely to be arrested,” Bankston said during the panel discussion. “If you are living in an impoverished neighborhood, you are more likely to be arrested.”
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, perpetrators who kill whites are more likely to be sentenced to death than if the victim was a person of color.
Tucker, the victim, was white.
“The race of the victim has a significant impact on who lives and who dies,” according to information obtained from the Equal Justice USA website. “Nationally, almost half (47%) of all murder victims since the 1970s are black. But for cases ending in an execution, only 17% of murder victims are black.”
Rev. Manuel Williams, the pastor of the Resurrection Catholic Church in Montgomery and director of Resurrection Catholic Missions of the South, called the death penalty “contrary to human dignity.”
“The death penalty is contrary to human dignity,” Williams said. “It is immoral, it is flawed, it is arbitrary, it is racist, it is classist, it is xenophobic, and it is totally useless in deterring crime,” Williams said. “It is so clear; it doesn’t make any of us safe.”
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