Sedley Alley was executed by the State of Tennessee for the murder of Suzanne Collins
According to court documents Sedley Alley would kidnap 19 year old Lance Corporal Suzanne Marie Collins who would be sexually assaulted and murdered
Sedley Alley would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Sedley Alley would be executed by lethal injection on June 28 2006
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When Was Sedley Alley Executed
Sedley Alley was executed on June 28 2006
Sedley Alley Case
Convicted rapist and killer Sedley Alley was executed early this morning by lethal injection, the second inmate to be put to death in Tennessee since 1960. Alley’s lawyers said they would continue to press for DNA testing on crime scene evidence that they believe will show an innocent man was put to death today. Meanwhile, the state continued to prepare to execute a second inmate, serial killer Paul Dennis Reid, who killed seven people at Nashville and Clarksville eateries in 1997. (See separate story on Reid’s legal case and stay of execution.)
Alley, 50, was pronounced dead at 2:12 a.m. today by a doctor at the state’s death chamber at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in west Nashville, state prison system spokeswoman Dorinda Carter said. He died about 10 minutes after a lethal series of drugs began flowing into his veins, according to members of the press who witnessed the execution.
He was convicted of the 1985 rape and murder of Suzanne Collins, 19, a young Marine who had been out jogging while undergoing aviation training at the Millington Naval Air Station near Memphis.
The Collins family did not witness this morning’s execution, but they had a representative on hand at the prison to read a statement on their behalf after the execution was carried out. “Rest in peace, Suzanne. The jury’s sentence has been carried out,” read Verna Wyatt, head of the victims’ rights group You Have the Power. The family sharply criticized the death penalty system in Tennessee, saying it has been “greviously abused,” and that too many years pass before death row inmates are put to death. “The old saying rings true,” Wyatt read. “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
Alley’s two grown children, David and April, were present at the execution. Before the drugs started to flow into his veins, Alley made a final statement in the death chamber in which he said that he loved them, media witnesses said after the execution. “I love you, Dad, it’s OK,” Alley’s daughter, April McIntyre, was reported to have said. Her comments were relayed after the execution by reporter Janice Broach of WMC-TV in Memphis.
Through the window separating the death chamber and the witness room, Alley blew kisses back and encouraged his children to “be good and stay strong, stay together.” He exhaled a couple of times, then turned pale but otherwise remained silent, the press witnesses said.
The death by lethal injection was the second ordered execution in Tennessee since 1960. Robert Glen Coe was executed in 2000 for the rape and murder of 8-year-old Cary Ann Medlin. Alley had previously received a 15-day reprieve last month from Gov. Phil Bredesen, intended to give the condemned man time to argue in court that he should be able to perform DNA testing on crime scene evidence.
Collins was brutally murdered. She was raped with a yard-long tree limb that impaled her internal organs and was left inside her. Police said Alley showed them the tree from which he took the limb.
In recent years, Alley had said he was innocent of the crime, and that newly available scientific advances in DNA testing would prove his claim. But the courts did not grant the tests, and his execution was rescheduled once the 15 days ran out. His defense team remained convinced of his innocence, and after the execution said they will continue to press their case in the courts to gain access to the evidence so that it can be tested. “God help the people in this process if the DNA proves he didn’t do it,” said Alley’s lawyer, Kelley Henry, an assistant federal public defender. “We will test the DNA.”
Another of Alley’s legal team, DNA expert Barry Scheck of the nonprofit Innocence Project, said the state’s unwillingness to test the DNA before executing Alley was “deeply disturbing. “DNA reveals the truth. It can exonerate the innocent and identify the guilty. But in this case DNA couldn’t reveal the truth, because nobody would let the evidence be tested,” Scheck said in a statement. “Tonight, the state of Tennessee executed a man they thought was probably guilty. That shouldn’t be good enough.”
Alley’s execution followed a burst of legal activity Tuesday and continued almost until the time Alley brought into the death chamber, at 1:46 a.m. A federal judge issued a stay of the execution around 11 p.m. Tuesday, just two hours before the execution had been scheduled to begin. The state attorney general’s office fought back vigorously, describing the events around Judge Gil Merritt’s last-minute stay as a “highly irregularly and in brazen violation every rule that applies to this situation,” and called his order “unlawful.”
The attorney general’s office appealed the stay to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, on which Merritt sits. Two judges from that court, including Chief Circuit Judge Danny J. Boggs and Judge James L. Ryan, overturned the stay, according to a fax from the court clerk’s office that was sent at 1:18 a.m. Earlier Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court had denied all of Alley’s appeals, and Bredesen had denied Alley’s request for clemency. Bredesen spokeswoman Lydia Lenker said in a statement that the governor “believes that this matter has been thoroughly and appropriately reviewed by the courts and therefore has denied clemency.”
Alley’s body was taken from the prison after the execution and sent to the local medical examiner for an autopsy. It was unclear what arrangements, if any, have been made for his remains. Alley spent his final days in one of the four “death watch” cells at Riverbend. Last night, after his execution, as witnesses exited the death chamber area, a face could be seen through the window from inside one of the other cells – smiling and waving. The face was that of Paul Dennis Reid, who, if the state gets its way, will also have his body wheeled away before the day is over.
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060628/NEWS03/60628003
