DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
~ Just Retribution ~
HTML https://justretribution.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: Executed
*****************************************************
#Post#: 483--------------------------------------------------
~ Matthew Reeves, 27Jan22, (AL) ~
By: BuzzC Date: November 26, 2021, 8:44 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
January execution date for Alabama man convicted in slaying--
November 18, 2021
[IMG]
HTML https://gray-wtok-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/VQ9XZ-Sk1wI93BgGDmHMQXPYPHI=/1200x675/smart/filters:quality(85)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/gray/NF6IVT27KNEZFHHKHYCNBCFAMY.jpg[/img]
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Alabama has set a January execution date
for an inmate convicted of the 1996 shotgun slaying of a man who
towed his car after it broke down.
The Alabama Supreme Court on Thursday set a Jan. 27 lethal
injection date for Matthew Reeves.
Reeves was sentenced to death for the November 1996 murder of
Willie Johnson in Dallas County, Alabama. Prosecutors said that
after Johnson gave Reeves a ride that Reeves stuck a shotgun
through the rear window of the truck cab and fatally shot
Johnson in the neck.
8)
#Post#: 491--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ Matthew Reeves, 27Jan22, (AL) ~
By: BuzzC Date: January 30, 2022, 4:12 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Alabama man executed for 1996 murder following Supreme Court
ruling--
January 27th, 2022
Alabama on Thursday executed an inmate convicted of murdering a
driver who gave him a ride in 1996.
The Supreme Court sided with the state and rejected claims that
his intellectual disability misled him to accept death by means
of lethal injection rather than a new, alternative method
recently legalized by the state.
The execution of 44-year-old Matthew Reeves had been temporarily
blocked by a lower court after he claimed the state did not help
him understand the paperwork that would have allowed him to be
executed via nitrogen hypoxia.
However, the state contended that he was intellectually sound
enough to fill out the form. The Supreme Court agreed in a 5-4
vote.
According to a defense expert, Reeves read at a first-grade
level and had the language skills of a 4-year-old.
He was executed at 9:24 p.m. local time at the Holman Prison on
Thursday, according to the Alabama attorney general.
Alabama deputy commissioner Jeffery Williams said Reeves had
visits with family members on Thursday before he was moved to a
cell closer to the death chamber in anticipation of the court’s
decision.
He declined a last meal.
Reeves was sentenced to death for shooting and killing Willie
Johnson with a shotgun after he had picked up Reeves and others
on the side of a rural highway in 1996 when Reeves was 18 years
old. He allegedly went to a party afterward where he danced and
re-enacted the killing in celebration while Johnson’s blood was
still on his hands.
The Supreme Court on Thursday evening tossed out a decision by
the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had ruled
Wednesday that a district judge didn’t abuse his discretion in
ruling that the state couldn’t execute Reeves by any method
other than nitrogen hypoxia, which has never been used in the
state, although it has been legal since 2018 when death row
inmates were given a form to state their preference for
execution.
Reeves sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act, claiming
he was intellectually disabled and was unable to comprehend the
form. He said he would have chosen to die via nitrogen hypoxia
rather than “torturous” lethal injection, but was not given any
assistance in filling it out, his lawyers said.
8)
*****************************************************