On June 17, 2004, three Birmingham police officers, Carlos Owen, Harley Chisholm III and Charles Bennett, were killed in Birmingham, Alabama, and a fourth officer was injured and survived. Two men were charged. The prosecution identified one of them, Kerry Spencer, as the person who carried out the killings. The other, Nathaniel Woods, was charged as his accomplice.
Spencer was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death by the trial judge after a jury recommended life without parole. Woods was tried in the Jefferson Circuit Court in October 2005. The jury found him guilty on all counts, recommended death by a vote of 10 to 2 on each of four capital counts, and the court imposed the sentence in December 2005. His conviction was reviewed in the Alabama state courts, in the federal district court, the Eleventh Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States over the next fourteen years. Governor Kay Ivey declined to intervene, and Woods was executed on March 5, 2020, at the age of 43.
The case drew national attention in its last weeks because Woods was not the person the prosecution said had carried out the killings, and because public figures asked the Governor to stop the sentence.
The three officers were killed in Birmingham on June 17, 2004, and a fourth officer was injured. Two men, Woods and Kerry Spencer, were charged. Woods was not the person the prosecution identified as having carried out the killings; the State's case against him rested on complicity, that is, on his responsibility for what Spencer did.
On October 17, 2004, a Jefferson County grand jury indicted Woods on four counts of capital murder and one count of attempted murder. Three of the capital counts, one for each officer, were brought under Alabama Code section 13A-5-40(a)(5), which covers an intentional killing of a police officer on duty. The fourth was brought under section 13A-5-40(a)(10), which covers the intentional killing of two or more persons by one act or pursuant to one scheme or course of conduct. The attempted murder count concerned the officer who survived. At the State's request the four cases were consolidated for trial.
Spencer was tried first, beginning June 13, 2005. At Woods's trial Spencer invoked his privilege against self-incrimination, and his testimony from the earlier trial was read to the jury.
Woods's trial began on October 3, 2005. The charge to the jury drew on two provisions of Alabama law. Under section 13A-5-40(c), a defendant who did not personally kill may be convicted of capital murder only if he is legally accountable for the murder because of complicity in the murder itself. Under section 13A-2-23, a person is legally accountable for the conduct of another if, with the intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense, he procures, induces or causes the other person to commit it, or aids or abets that person in committing it. The jury was told that each participant in a common criminal enterprise is responsible for everything that may reasonably flow from it.
After less than two and a half hours of deliberation, on October 10, 2005, the jury found Woods guilty on all counts. The penalty phase took place the next day. The jury recommended death by a vote of 10 to 2 on each of the four capital counts. A sentencing hearing took place on December 2, 2005, and on December 9, 2005 the trial court accepted the recommendation and sentenced Woods to death. For the attempted murder he received life imprisonment. A motion for a new trial, filed on January 3, 2006, was denied on January 23, 2006.
On August 31, 2007 the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals decided Woods's direct appeal. It held that the evidence was sufficient to support each capital murder count and Woods's complicity in the murders, and that the State was not required to show that Woods had personally carried out the killings or to offer physical evidence tying him to them. It rejected his challenges to the exclusion of two relatives' penalty-phase testimony, to the victim-impact evidence, and to his counsel's performance, which was reviewed only for plain error. It also held that he lacked standing to challenge the provisions allowing a judge to override a jury's life recommendation, because his jury had recommended death.
The court affirmed the convictions but remanded the case with directions as to sentencing, because the trial court's sentencing order had not stated whether it found any nonstatutory mitigating circumstance. The trial court issued an amended order on September 24, 2007, and on December 21, 2007 the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the death sentence on return from remand.
His appeal counsel then withdrew and did not file a petition for certiorari in the Alabama Supreme Court, and the certificate of judgment issued on January 9, 2008. New counsel moved on April 29, 2008 for an out-of-time appeal. The Alabama Supreme Court denied that motion on August 24, 2009, and on February 22, 2010 the Supreme Court of the United States denied certiorari.
On December 30, 2008, Woods filed a petition under Rule 32 of the Alabama Rules of Criminal Procedure in the Jefferson Circuit Court, a 124-page petition raising 32 issues. The court stayed it in January 2009 and summarily dismissed it on December 1, 2010; reconsideration was denied on January 25, 2011.
The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the dismissal on April 29, 2016. It held that Rule 32 requires more specific pleading than ordinary civil practice and that most of his claims about the work of trial counsel, including claims about expert witnesses, a manslaughter instruction and juror conduct, were not sufficiently pleaded. It found his claim that appeal counsel should have sought rehearing procedurally barred and without merit, and his claim about the attempted murder conviction time-barred. The Alabama Supreme Court denied certiorari on September 16, 2016, and Woods did not ask the Supreme Court of the United States to review that decision.
Woods filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama on October 27, 2016, and amended it twice. On July 18, 2018 the court denied relief. It held the claims about appeal counsel meritless or defaulted, the claim that the State withheld evidence barred under the state rules and, on the merits, without a basis for relief under the federal habeas statute, and the claims about the admission of other bad acts and the refusal to change venue unexhausted and defaulted, with the sub-claims that were reviewed failing in the alternative.
A further claim concerned plea negotiations. Woods contended that trial counsel had given ineffective advice on a plea offer, and that the default of that claim should be excused. The district court found the claim not substantial. On February 22, 2019 the Eleventh Circuit denied a certificate of appealability, observing that the claim had some merit but that Woods had not pleaded facts tending to show that his post-conviction counsel knew of the offer. His counsel petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States, and in October 2019 the Court denied certiorari.
An execution date of March 5, 2020 was set. Public appeals to the Governor followed. Martin Luther King III wrote to Governor Ivey asking, "Are you willing to allow a potentially innocent man to be executed?" United States Senator Doug Jones said that a delay was warranted so that the case could be reviewed. Woods's family also sought to stop the sentence, and supporters argued that it was unfair to execute a man who had not carried out the killings and had received an unfair trial.
On March 3, 2020 Woods's counsel filed an appeal in the Eleventh Circuit, together with a motion to stay the execution. On March 4 a panel denied the stay. On the day of the execution his counsel filed a petition for certiorari in the Supreme Court of the United States, with an application for a stay. The Court stayed the sentence pending further order, then denied the petition and the application, and vacated the stay.
The Governor denied clemency. Her statement said: "This is not a decision that I take lightly, but I firmly believe in the rule of law and that justice must be served." She added that Woods's conviction had been reviewed at least nine times over fifteen years and that under Alabama law "someone who helps kill a police officer is just as guilty as the person who directly commits the crime."
Woods was executed in Alabama on March 5, 2020. The Alabama Attorney General said that evening: "Tonight, justice has been served." The Eleventh Circuit dismissed his pending appeal as moot on March 18, 2020.
Woods did not personally carry out the killings. The prosecution identified Kerry Spencer as the person who did. Spencer has said that Woods was "100% innocent."
Woods's supporters, including members of his family, argued that he was innocent and that his trial was unfair. The Court of Criminal Appeals held the evidence sufficient on complicity, and the Governor said that the conviction had been reviewed at least nine times.
On the plea offer, Woods said his lawyer persuaded him to reject an offer of a term of 20 to 25 years. The federal courts denied relief on that claim without a certificate of appealability.
June 17, 2004: three Birmingham police officers are killed; a fourth is injured.
October 17, 2004: Woods is indicted on four counts of capital murder and one of attempted murder.
June 13, 2005: Spencer's trial begins; he is convicted.
October 3, 2005: Woods's trial begins in the Jefferson Circuit Court.
October 10, 2005: the jury finds Woods guilty on all counts.
October 11, 2005: the jury recommends death by a vote of 10 to 2.
December 9, 2005: the trial court sentences Woods to death.
August 31, 2007: the Court of Criminal Appeals affirms the convictions and remands for sentencing.
December 21, 2007: the Court of Criminal Appeals affirms the death sentence.
December 30, 2008: Woods files his Rule 32 petition.
February 22, 2010: the Supreme Court of the United States denies certiorari on direct review.
December 1, 2010: the circuit court dismisses the Rule 32 petition.
April 29, 2016: the Court of Criminal Appeals affirms the dismissal.
September 16, 2016: the Alabama Supreme Court denies certiorari.
October 27, 2016: Woods files his federal habeas petition.
July 18, 2018: the district court denies relief.
February 22, 2019: the Eleventh Circuit denies a certificate of appealability.
October 2019: the Supreme Court of the United States denies certiorari.
March 4, 2020: the Eleventh Circuit denies a stay.
March 5, 2020: the Supreme Court denies the petition and the stay application; Woods is executed.
March 18, 2020: the Eleventh Circuit dismisses his appeal as moot.