Alabama's execution of Casey McWhorter: What we know

Marty Roney, Montgomery Advertiser
·4 min read
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Alabama executed Casey McWhorter on Thursday for a 1993 murder.

Casey A. McWhorter has spent all of his adult life on Alabama’s death row, and the state wants him to die there.

Gov. Kay Ivey has ordered his execution by lethal injection to happen within the 30-hour period from midnight Thursday to 6 a.m. Friday. The execution chamber, and death row, are inside the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.

The murder

McWhorter, 48, was convicted in 1994 of capital murder in the 1993 robbery and slaying of Edward Lee Williams in Marshall County. McWhorter had turned 18 three months before his crime. He and two juvenile co-defendants, a 16-year-old and the 15-year-old son of the victim, had planned to rob and murder Williams in his home.

Court records and testimony show that McWhorter and the 16-year-old went to Williams’ home armed with rifles and two home-made silencers, one fashioned from a pillow and the other made from a milk jug filled with napkins. The teens shot Williams 11 times.

McWhorter was convicted and the jury recommended the death penalty by a 10-2 vote, records show.

Seeking a stay

Court records show the defense has two motions pending to stay the execution, one before the Alabama Supreme Court and one before the United States Supreme Court.

The state supreme court motion alleges that McWhorter was not notified of his pending execution within the state mandated time frame of 30 days prior to when the execution is to take place. The timeframe is there to give the defense opportunities to seek legal relief.

On the federal level, the defense alleges that McWhorter should be considered a juvenile under Alabama law, since the age of majority in the state is 19. That’s when the state considers a person an adult. The USSC ruled in 2004 that defendants who were convicted of capital murder for crimes they committed before they were 18 could not face the death penalty.

Most states consider 18 as the age for adults. Alabama and Nebraska use 19, and Mississippi uses 21, according to the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School.

What's next

Unless a stay is granted, on Thursday McWhorter will:

  • Be given the opportunity to see visitors

  • Will be given the opportunity to have a last meal.

  • Will not be taken to the death chamber and prepared for the execution until all legal efforts by the defense have been exhausted.

The execution is set to begin at 6 p.m., even though the death warrant will have been in effect for 18 hours. That's to allow the McWhorter's defense team the time to pursue all legal efforts at seeking a stay, Kelly Betts, the spokeswoman for the Alabama Department of Corrections, said in an earlier interview.

Witnesses and media representatives covering the execution must check in at the prison between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. Thursday.

The execution process

The state has been tight-lipped about the execution process, the makeup of the execution team and even the compounds used in executions.

On July 21, the state executed James Edward Barber.

Prior to Barber’s execution, two executions were delayed after the team could not access the veins of the condemned. Another execution took three hours. Ivey called for a pause in executions and a “top-to-bottom” review of the process. The process for Barber’s execution appears to be the process the state will follow for future execution s where lethal injection is the method used.

Neither Ivey nor ADOC have commented on any findings from that review. But the newly established procedures will likely be a template for future executions in Alabama after the state seemed to have fewer problems killing Barber.

Those likely policy changes include:

  • An extended timeframe for the death warrant. Alabama switched to a 30-hour death warrant for Barber in place of the more traditional 24-hour death warrant.

  • Continued use of the apparently new execution team to gain access to veins of the condemned. The DOC and governor’s office have repeatedly declined to comment on the makeup of execution staff.

Without the longer time of the death warrant, Barber would not have been executed. The more traditional 24 hours would have expired at midnight July 20. Barber’s defense attorneys were seeking a stay in the execution from the United States Supreme Court after all other legal avenues had been exhausted. The high court handed down their decision not to grant a stay about 12:15 a.m. on July 21. The death warrant expired at 6 a.m. on July 21.

Betts then declined to comment specifically on the makeup of the execution staff other than to say, “All members of the ADOC IV team have proper, valid credentials.” The Hippocratic Oath forbids physicians from taking part in executions.

The Associated Press and the Alabama Reflector contributed to this report. Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Marty Roney at mroney@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Alabama's execution of Casey McWhorter: What we know