Dear Governor Riley,
I am concerned
that the State of
Alabama has set a new execution
date in the case of Thomas Arthur despite the fact that
there has been no DNA testing in the face of serious
doubt about his guilt. Arthur was sentenced to death for
the murder of Troy Wicker in 1982, yet maintains his
innocence.
Thomas Arthur was
first charged with the murder of Troy Wicker in 1982.
He was convicted and sentenced to death twice,
but both times his conviction was overturned because of
improper admission of evidence.
Judy Wicker, Troy Wicker’s wife, was also
convicted of the murder and she was sentenced to life
imprisonment in 1982.
At Arthur’s third
trial in 1991, the state’s main witness was Judy Wicker
whose testimony the prosecution sought in return for
assistance with her parole bid. Judy Wicker was paroled
about a year after Arthur’s 1991 retrial after serving
10 years in prison.
In an apparent conflict of interest, the
prosecutor of this second retrial had been Judy Wicker’s
attorney in the negotiations for her testimony.
At her own trial,
in 1982, Judy Wicker had testified that Thomas Arthur
was not involved in the murder, but at Arthur’s 1991
retrial, she told a substantially different story,
testifying that she and two others hired Arthur to
commit the murder.
No physical
evidence linked Thomas Arthur to the crime. Hair samples
and fingerprints from the crime scene were tested, but
did not match Thomas Arthur’s. He was convicted solely
on disputed circumstantial evidence and the testimony of
Judy Wicker, who clearly committed perjury, either
during the 1991 retrial or during her own trial, and who
testified in exchange for assistance with her parole
bid.
For months,
Thomas Arthur has been seeking to have modern DNA
testing conducted on various pieces of evidence related
to the crime, including Judy Wicker’s bloodstained
clothing, the rape evidence, and hair samples. To date,
such testing has not occurred.
While I have tremendous
sympathy for the family and friends of Troy Wicker, I
find this case extremely troubling, given the state’s
reliance on the testimony of a witness who clearly
perjured herself at some point, and given the huge
disparities in sentencing, where one defendant is
sentenced to death while another serves just 10 years,
and two others implicated in the murder are not even
investigated.
Governor Riley,
as you may know, more than 100 wrongful convictions in
capital cases in the
USA have been uncovered
since 1977 and DNA testing has played a substantial role
in more than a dozen cases. I strongly urge you to
demonstrate your respect for justice and human life by
doing everything in your power to stop the execution of
Thomas Arthur, and, in order to obtain the truth, to
ensure that the requested DNA testing is allowed to take
place. Thank you for your time and attention to this
serious matter.
Respectfully,
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