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ATMORE - The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday issued an 11th-hour stay delaying the execution of convicted killer James Callahan and blocking Alabama's latest attempt to be the first state to break what amounts to a national moratorium on the death penalty.

The stay was issued at 4:45 p.m., about 15 minutes after Callahan's visitation with his family ended and a little more than an hour before the scheduled execution.

The court's brief order did not detail why it granted the stay.

Callahan's execution at Holman Correctional Facility would have been the first in Alabama and just the second in the United States since the U.S. Supreme Court announced in September that it would hear a Kentucky case challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection. Most states voluntarily halted executions after the court said it would hear the case, Baze v. Rees, and federal courts have blocked most other executions.

Callahan was convicted in 1987 of the February 1982 kidnapping, rape, and murder of Rebecca Howell, 26.

Howell, a student at Jacksonville State University, was abducted from a coin laundry in Jacksonville on Feb. 3. Her body was found two weeks later in a rain-swollen Tallasseehatchee Creek.

In a tape-recorded statement to police that was played at his second trial, Callahan said he held Howell prisoner in his secluded mobile home for two days, then released her near the creek with her hands bound. He denied killing her.

He also claimed to have dated Howell when she was a cheerleader at Jacksonville State, though her family testified that she was never a cheerleader at the college, and that the two did not know one another.

Callahan's first conviction was overturned on appeal because evidence was improperly admitted.

Missed deadline:

Callahan's execution was delayed once before, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit issued a stay to give Callahan time to argue that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment. But the state of Alabama appealed, arguing that he missed a deadline for filing that claim by two years.

On Tuesday the circuit court ruled for the state.

Bryan Stevenson, one of Callahan's attorneys and executive director of Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit organization that represents Death Row inmates, said he was pleased that the Supreme Court stayed the execution.

"Today didn't pass without a lot of anguish," Stevenson said. "Executions are pretty terrible. Almost-executions are also pretty bad."

Gov. Bob Riley had no comment on the stay.

A prison guard via radio described the reaction from the victim's mother and sister, Verna Beth Howell Coheley of Ohatchee and Karen Howell Greer of Goodlettsville, Tenn. He said they called it "cruel and unusual that they had to keep coming down here and going through the same thing." A prison system spokesman declined to identify the prison guard.

Holman's warden, Grantt Culliver, said members of Callahan's family were overjoyed and applauded when they received news of the stay. Callahan had about a half-dozen visitors Thursday afternoon, including his son and two sisters.

Before receiving the news, Callahan, who made no last meal requests, ate a cheeseburger from a prison vending machine and drank a Coca-Cola, a prison spokesman said.

Ruling in spring?:

Only one inmate has been executed since the Supreme Court announced it would hear the lethal injection challenge. A Texas inmate was executed just hours after the court announced Sept. 25 that it would hear Baze v. Rees and before it began delaying executions.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Kentucky case Jan. 7; a ruling is unlikely before spring.

Alabama had tried twice before to become the first state to resume executions, but the courts also stopped both of those executions.

The U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay to convicted killer Thomas Arthur a day before he was to be executed on Dec. 6. Convicted serial killer Daniel Siebert was granted a stay in October by the same federal appeals court that on Tuesday ruled Callahan's execution could go forward.

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Execution blocked at 11th hour

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Court stays lethal injection for Callahan
Friday, February 01, 2008
STAN DIEL
News staff writer

ATMORE - The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday issued an 11th-hour stay delaying the execution of convicted killer James Callahan and blocking Alabama's latest attempt to be the first state to break what amounts to a national moratorium on the death penalty.

The stay was issued at 4:45 p.m., about 15 minutes after Callahan's visitation with his family ended and a little more than an hour before the scheduled execution.

The court's brief order did not detail why it granted the stay.

Callahan's execution at Holman Correctional Facility would have been the first in Alabama and just the second in the United States since the U.S. Supreme Court announced in September that it would hear a Kentucky case challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection. Most states voluntarily halted executions after the court said it would hear the case, Baze v. Rees, and federal courts have blocked most other executions.

Callahan was convicted in 1987 of the February 1982 kidnapping, rape, and murder of Rebecca Howell, 26.

Howell, a student at Jacksonville State University, was abducted from a coin laundry in Jacksonville on Feb. 3. Her body was found two weeks later in a rain-swollen Tallasseehatchee Creek.

In a tape-recorded statement to police that was played at his second trial, Callahan said he held Howell prisoner in his secluded mobile home for two days, then released her near the creek with her hands bound. He denied killing her.

He also claimed to have dated Howell when she was a cheerleader at Jacksonville State, though her family testified that she was never a cheerleader at the college, and that the two did not know one another.

Callahan's first conviction was overturned on appeal because evidence was improperly admitted.

Missed deadline:

Callahan's execution was delayed once before, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit issued a stay to give Callahan time to argue that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment. But the state of Alabama appealed, arguing that he missed a deadline for filing that claim by two years.

On Tuesday the circuit court ruled for the state.

Bryan Stevenson, one of Callahan's attorneys and executive director of Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit organization that represents Death Row inmates, said he was pleased that the Supreme Court stayed the execution.

"Today didn't pass without a lot of anguish," Stevenson said. "Executions are pretty terrible. Almost-executions are also pretty bad."

Gov. Bob Riley had no comment on the stay.

A prison guard via radio described the reaction from the victim's mother and sister, Verna Beth Howell Coheley of Ohatchee and Karen Howell Greer of Goodlettsville, Tenn. He said they called it "cruel and unusual that they had to keep coming down here and going through the same thing." A prison system spokesman declined to identify the prison guard.

Holman's warden, Grantt Culliver, said members of Callahan's family were overjoyed and applauded when they received news of the stay. Callahan had about a half-dozen visitors Thursday afternoon, including his son and two sisters.

Before receiving the news, Callahan, who made no last meal requests, ate a cheeseburger from a prison vending machine and drank a Coca-Cola, a prison spokesman said.

Ruling in spring?:

Only one inmate has been executed since the Supreme Court announced it would hear the lethal injection challenge. A Texas inmate was executed just hours after the court announced Sept. 25 that it would hear Baze v. Rees and before it began delaying executions.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Kentucky case Jan. 7; a ruling is unlikely before spring.

Alabama had tried twice before to become the first state to resume executions, but the courts also stopped both of those executions.

The U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay to convicted killer Thomas Arthur a day before he was to be executed on Dec. 6. Convicted serial killer Daniel Siebert was granted a stay in October by the same federal appeals court that on Tuesday ruled Callahan's execution could go forward.

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© 2008 The Birmingham News
© 2008 al.com All Rights Reserved.

State plans to execute killer

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Thursday, January 31, 2008
STAN DIEL
News staff writer, Birmingham News©

The state of Alabama today will try again to become the first state in the nation to resume executions since the U.S. Supreme Court effectively halted them in September.

The state has scheduled for 6 p.m. the execution of James Callahan, following a ruling by an appeals court late Tuesday that lifted a stay. Callahan was convicted of the 1982 kidnapping and murder of 26-year-old Rebecca Howell of Jacksonville.

He is the third inmate Alabama has tried to execute since the U.S. Supreme Court announced Sept. 25 that it would hear a Kentucky case challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection. Most states have voluntarily halted executions pending a decision in the Kentucky case, which is expected this summer.

Alabama's first two attempts to execute prisoners since the Supreme Court took on the Kentucky case have been blocked by the courts:

The Supreme Court granted a stay to convicted killer Thomas Arthur a day before he was to be executed on Dec. 6.

Convicted serial killer Daniel Siebert was granted a stay in October by the same federal appeals court that on Wednesday ruled Callahan's execution could go forward. Siebert's stay also came a day before his scheduled execution.

Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, said he was surprised the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled in favor of the state, at least momentarily clearing the way for Callahan's execution at Holman Correctional Facility near Atmore. But he expects the Supreme Court today to stop the state from executing his client.

"We're hopeful that the court will grant a stay," Stevenson said.

Equal Justice, a Montgomery-based advocacy group that represents indigent inmates, filed a request for a stay with the Supreme Court late Wednesday.

Callahan's execution was halted by the U.S. District Court in December to give him time to argue that lethal injection amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It's essentially the same argument being made in the Kentucky case, Baze v. Rees.

The state of Alabama filed a counterclaim arguing that the statute of limitations for Callahan's appeal had expired, and Callahan's execution should be carried out as scheduled.

The state argued that Callahan had two years from the date he selected lethal injection as his method of execution to file his appeal. He picked lethal injection July 31, 2002, so the window for his appeal closed on July 31, 2004, according to the state. Callahan's appeal was filed on Oct. 11, 2006.

A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for the state 2-1 Tuesday evening.

"In light of the fact Callahan's complaint was filed more than two years beyond the limitations period, the district court abused its discretion by entering a stay of execution," Judge Susan H. Black wrote for the majority. "We now vacate that decision."

Judge Gerald Bard Tjoflat voted with Black, while Judge Charles R. Wilson dissented. In a dissenting opinion Wilson argued that the clock on the statute of limitations shouldn't begin ticking until "the prisoner's execution becomes imminent."

"The execution becomes imminent when the prisoner has exhausted all of his state and federal challenges to the validity of the sentence," he wrote.

Stevenson said the ruling by the panel of judges was unexpected because it's the same court that stopped an earlier execution.

"It's pretty surprising for a lower federal court to apparently try to force the Supreme Court's hand on an issue like this," he said.

Callahan's crime made statewide headlines in the 1980s. The carpenter, then 35 years old, kidnapped Howell from a self-service laundry and suffocated her on Feb. 4, 1982. Fishermen found her body in a nearby creek on Feb. 17. Howell was a student at Jacksonville State University.

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Sen. Sanders to seek 3-year execution ban

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Aims to lessen risk of executing innocents
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
DAVID WHITE
News staff writer

MONTGOMERY - State Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma, on Tuesday vowed to push again this year for a three-year ban on executions in Alabama, to give state officials time to start procedures he said would lessen the risk of executing innocent people.

"We believe that the time is right now to hope," Sanders said from the steps of the State House. "We believe that people in Alabama, as they become more aware of the deficiencies in the death penalty in Alabama, are inclined to lend a different kind of ear."

Among other defects, Sanders said rich people can afford to hire good attorneys to argue their innocence or why they shouldn't be sentenced to death, while poor people often can't afford to hire capable attorneys with experience in death-penalty cases.

Sanders for years has tried and failed to get the Legislature to approve the three-year moratorium.

Chances are better:

But Sanders said he thinks chances are better now. He pointed to editorials in newspapers statewide that have supported a moratorium or an end to Alabama's death penalty. Last month, New Jersey abolished its death penalty.

"I don't want to suggest it's not an uphill climb, but we feel like we're mountain climbers, so we're going to tackle it," he said.

Rep. Marcel Black, D-Tuscumbia, said he thinks a death-penalty moratorium will have a tough time passing this year, too.

"I think it would still be a difficult sell," said Black, who chairs the Judiciary Committee of the state House of Representatives.

He said many legislators "don't want to be classified as soft on crime."

Black also said he thinks a majority of state lawmakers believe the death penalty can be a legitimate punishment.

But Black said Sanders, who chairs the Senate committee that drafts the state education budget, knows how to push for his bills and make cases for them. "I don't want to say there's no chance," Black said.

This year's regular session of the Legislature starts Tuesday.

Sanders said his proposal would impose a three-year ban on judges imposing the death penalty and on the state executing convicted murderers already sentenced to death.

Fair and impartial:

During that time, state officials, would have to start procedures "to ensure that death penalty cases are administered fairly and impartially" and "to minimize the risk of innocent persons being executed." Among other things, state officials would have to:

Follow American Bar Association guidelines for the selection of defense attorneys with appropriate experience and training to handle death-penalty cases.

Adopt procedures to eliminate discrimination in sentencing in capital cases on the basis of the victim's or defendant's race.

Ban the execution of mentally retarded people and anyone who was 17 or younger when he or she committed murder.

Sanders said he would once again sponsor separate bills that would:

Let the jury in a capital case, and not the judge, decide whether a convicted murderer should be sentenced to death or to life in prison without chance of parole. Now, juries make advisory verdicts that do not have to be followed by judges. This bill would require a judge to impose the sentence approved by the jury.

Make the state, under certain conditions, allow DNA testing on evidence in a case that led to an inmate's conviction and imprisonment, if the evidence hadn't been tested before. A judge would have to review the case and consider the DNA evidence if it could clear the victim of blame. Any imprisoned state inmate, not just someone on Death Row, could file a written motion for testing.

Establish how a judge would determine if a defendant in a capital murder case was mentally retarded, and bar the state from seeking the death penalty against someone judged to be retarded. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the U.S. Constitution bars the execution of mentally retarded people.

Ban Alabama judges from imposing the death penalty on anyone who was 17 or younger when he or she committed murder. The bill would conform state law to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the U.S. constitution bans executing people for crimes committed when they were that young.

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© 2008 The Birmingham News
© 2008 al.com All Rights Reserved.

Alabama seeking to resume executions following oral argument in Baze v. Rees

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Equal Justice Iniative

January 29, 2008

The Alabama Attorney General is asking the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals to reinstate a January 31, 2008 execution date for James Callahan just three weeks after the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Baze v. Rees.

After the United States Supreme Court made clear last year that executions would be stayed until resolution of Baze v. Rees, the Alabama Supreme Court nonetheless continued to schedule executions. Thomas Arthur was scheduled to be executed on December 6, 2007, and James Callahan was scheduled for January 31, 2008. Mr. Arthur’s execution was stayed by the United States Supreme Court on December 5, 2007. Mr. Callahan’s execution was stayed by the U.S. District Court on December 14, 2007.

Mr. Callahan’s challenge to lethal injection was filed in October 2006. The federal district court ruled that a stay was necessary so that Alabama’s first and only trial on the merits of lethal injection could take place. The judge further found that "there was a substantial likelihood" that Mr. Callahan's challenge would be successful.

Although the stay has been in place for six weeks, the Eleventh Circuit indicated last week that it would issue a decision today, facilitating a possible execution on Thursday. The State of Alabama has notified the U.S. Supreme Court that it will ask that court to vacate the stay if the Eleventh Circuit refuses to do so.

District Court Order Granting Stay

Mr. Callahan's Brief to the Eleventh Circuit

Summary of Issues at Mr. Callahan's Trial

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Execution blocked at 11th hour