吃瓜大本营

On the night of October 4, 1991, Mamie Dutton was asleep in a bedroom at her cousin鈥檚 house in Decatur, Alabama. The cousin, Ludie Mae Tucker, lived a few blocks west of the city鈥檚 shopping district, in a run-down neighborhood that struggled with crime and had been dubbed 鈥渃rack town鈥� by locals. Around midnight the doorbell rang.

When Dutton peered out of her room, she could see Ludie Mae talking through the window blinds with a man on the porch. He was agitated, and said he鈥檇 been in a car crash and needed to use the telephone to call his family. 鈥淚鈥檓 bleeding to death,鈥� he pleaded. Ludie Mae offered to dial the number for him. Dutton could hear that he鈥檇 come inside the house. 鈥淸He] was just a jabbering and his voice was a quivering,鈥� Dutton said later in a statement. She heard Ludie Mae say that her husband was in the other room鈥攁 strange comment, given that she wasn鈥檛 married.

Suddenly, Ludie Mae cried out. Dutton was too scared to leave the room. 鈥淚 just froze. I couldn鈥檛 move,鈥� Dutton later told police. 鈥淚 knowed he was doing something to her.鈥�

The man then ran into Dutton鈥檚 darkened room and stabbed her in the side before running out of the house. She didn鈥檛 manage to get a clear look at him鈥攅xcept that he was wearing a 鈥渓ight looking shirt.鈥� When Dutton came out of her room, holding the wound on her side, Ludie Mae was lying on the couch bleeding with the phone in her hand. She鈥檇 been stabbed four times, including once in the left side of her chest, but she鈥檇 managed to dial 911 and was on the phone with Decatur police.

An officer who鈥檇 been patrolling the neighborhood arrived on the scene minutes after Ludie Mae鈥檚 call. Ludie Mae was near-hysterical, but conscious enough to describe her attacker to the officers who arrived moments later as a black male, stocky and short with a 鈥渓ight colored shirt that looked like it had blood on it.鈥� An ambulance rushed her to the hospital, but it was too late. The stab wound to her chest had pierced her heart, and not long after arrival, she was pronounced dead.

More than two years later, a man named Robin 鈥淩ocky鈥� Myers was convicted of Ludie Mae Tucker鈥檚 murder. At the time of Ludie Mae鈥檚 death, Rocky was living across the street from her with his wife and children on one side of a converted duplex. Today, he鈥檚 one of 175 prisoners on death row in Alabama, in the same prison where Dominique Ray was recently executed.

According to his lawyers, the state may be preparing to kill an innocent man. Convicted on the basis of scant evidence by a nearly all-white jury in a trial that lasted only a week, Rocky has intellectual disability, scoring at or below the crucial 75-point threshold for a formal diagnosis in four out of five IQ tests. His death sentence was imposed by a judge who overrode the jury鈥檚 recommendation for life without parole through a procedural option that is no longer legal. And because of egregious conduct by an attorney working on his case, Rocky lost his chance for a post-conviction appeal鈥攚hich meant that he was unable to present new evidence in federal court, including testimony revealing that police interfered with a key witness.

To Kacey Keeton, a federal defender who picked up Rocky鈥檚 appeal in 2007, the case is a checklist for everything that鈥檚 wrong with the death penalty in America. 鈥淚 think there was an elderly white lady that was dead in Decatur, Alabama, and the prosecution was telling [the jury], 鈥楬ey, we have this black guy who did it,鈥欌�� she said. 鈥淎nd I think that鈥檚 it.鈥�

Rocky wasn鈥檛 the first suspect to come under the spotlight during the investigation. After Ludie Mae鈥檚 murder, detectives searched her house for forensic evidence. They didn鈥檛 lift any usable fingerprints from the crime scene, but they did determine that a VCR鈥攁 valuable consumer good in 1991鈥攚as missing. Then the day after the murder, a local man handed over to the Decatur police department a VCR matching the description of the one stolen from Ludie Mae鈥檚 house. He said he鈥檇 found it at his sister鈥檚 house, which was just a few blocks up the road from Ludie Mae鈥檚.

The house wasn鈥檛 an average family home. His sister was running the property as a 鈥渟hot house,鈥� where people could buy whiskey and beer, and a local drug dealer named Leon 鈥淏utch鈥� Madden sold crack cocaine from the porch. Butch鈥檚 operation was no secret to law enforcement, with one witness in the case later saying that he had a 鈥渨ell known relationship with the Decatur police.鈥� There were rumors that he鈥檇 been given a de facto license to sell drugs in exchange for information and other favors.

When police called Butch in, he complied, along with one of his lieutenants, Willie 鈥淩oadrunner鈥� Raybon. After questioning, the two men signed statements saying that a regular customer of the shot house, Anthony 鈥淐ool Breeze鈥� Ballentine, had traded the VCR for crack on the night of Ludie Mae鈥檚 murder. Butch鈥檚 statement described Cool Breeze as showing up with the VCR, 鈥渟weating and shaking, acting paranoid as hell.鈥�

Cool Breeze was well-known in the neighborhood. Although he was a heavy crack user, his family was respected, with deep roots in Decatur. Soon police got another tip that pointed toward his involvement in the murder. A woman who lived in the neighborhood called in and said she鈥檇 seen him run into an alley near Ludie Mae鈥檚 house on the night of the murder, wearing a white shirt stained with blood. Armed with the statements, detectives put out a warrant for Cool Breeze鈥檚 arrest, picking him up at the aluminum plant where he worked.

With Cool Breeze in custody, the governor鈥檚 office issued a reward for further information about the murder to see if they could strengthen their case. A few weeks later, a local man who鈥檇 known Cool Breeze for nearly 30 years came forward to claim it, saying that he鈥檇 seen someone else cross the road near Ludie Mae鈥檚 house with a VCR tucked under his arm on the night of the murder. He鈥檇 been tracked down by an investigator working for Cool Breeze鈥檚 defense team, who found him working at the same country club where Cool Breeze鈥檚 father served as head waiter. He offered detectives an affidavit saying that the man he鈥檇 seen cross the road was short and stocky, certainly not Cool Breeze, who was nearly six-foot tall.

Detectives called Butch and Roadrunner back into the station for another interview, where both men recanted their earlier statements. Roadrunner claimed he鈥檇 implicated Cool Breeze because he was angry over an argument they鈥檇 had the night of the murder, and Butch said he鈥檇 backed up Roadrunner鈥檚 statement because 鈥淚 just figured that鈥檚 what everybody wanted to hear.鈥� They said the story they鈥檇 originally told was still mostly true: a man had come to the shot house asking for crack on credit the night of Ludie Mae鈥檚 murder, returning later with a VCR to trade.

But there was one major change. Instead of Cool Breeze, they now fingered Rocky Myers as the man who鈥檇 come to the shot house with the VCR.

Rocky Myers grew up in New Jersey, one of 10 children in what relatives describe as a 鈥渉ard life.鈥� His father was an alcoholic, and his mother battled depression after having her first child at 14. From early on it was apparent that Rocky had a hard time keeping up with other kids his age, and at 11 he was diagnosed with intellectual disability (termed 鈥渕ental retardation鈥� at the time). 鈥淩ocky was a misunderstood, gentle person,鈥� . 鈥淗e didn鈥檛 excel like his brothers did.鈥� He struggled at school, never learning how to read above a third-grade level, and at 16 years old he couldn鈥檛 tell time.

Rocky eventually married and had four children, moving to the west side of Decatur, a small port city just south of the Tennessee border where his wife鈥檚 family lived. His children remember him as a loving father who, despite his struggles with drug abuse, never left their lives or abused them. 鈥淗e was there for us. We never had to beg for anything to eat. I mean we didn鈥檛 have everything in the world but we had him and my moms. I mean, we had us,鈥� said Deon Myers, his second-youngest son. 鈥淚 just don鈥檛 have any memory of him being any type of violent person.鈥�

Rocky and his family eventually settled into a home across the street from Ludie Mae. He did odd jobs, scraping together cash from friends and family while his wife worked as a cook at a nearby restaurant. At the time of Ludie Mae鈥檚 murder Rocky was a regular user of crack, but while he鈥檇 been arrested for theft he鈥檇 never been charged with a crime involving violence. When he had the money, he鈥檇 walk up a narrow alley that ran three blocks up from his home to Butch鈥檚 shot house and buy $10 or $20 worth of crack.

After Butch and Roadrunner changed their statements, homicide detectives turned their focus toward Rocky, who was on probation for receiving stolen property. Detectives called him for a urine test, which he failed鈥攁 violation of his probation. Rocky was sent to jail, where he was interrogated. The interrogation wasn鈥檛 filmed or recorded, but the two detectives gave an account of it during Rocky鈥檚 trial. According to Detective Sergeant Dwight Hale, Rocky admitted to using crack but denied knowing anything about the murder and said he鈥檇 never met Roadrunner or Butch before. But then Hale asked Rocky if he knew a man named Marzell Ewing. Rocky said he did.

Marzell was an associate of Butch鈥檚 who, in his own words, 鈥渟old drugs, watched houses, and did basically anything he needed at the time.鈥� He and Rocky knew each other well from around the neighborhood. So when Hale said that Marzell had made a statement saying that he鈥檇 seen Rocky give a VCR to Butch the night Ludie Mae was killed, Rocky hung his head. In the following hours, he admitted knowing Butch and Roadrunner and said that he had indeed traded a VCR for crack at the shot house on the night of Ludie Mae鈥檚 murder.

But Rocky denied that he鈥檇 been at Ludie Mae鈥檚 house that night; he claimed he鈥檇 found the VCR stashed in the alley that runs between his house and the shot house. When detectives pressed him on the timing of his story about finding the VCR and taking it to Butch, he faltered 鈥� first, it was 40 minutes before police arrived at Ludie Mae鈥檚 house, then 10 minutes, and finally, he said he couldn鈥檛 remember clearly. When Hale told him that he was facing the electric chair, he started crying and asked to speak with his mother.

Keeton, Rocky鈥檚 current attorney, says that his inability to provide a clear timeline during the interrogation has everything to do with his intellectual disability, which she鈥檚 observed in more than a decade of working with him on his case. For years when she鈥檇 visit him in prison, for example, she found it strange that he would refuse her offer to eat while they talked about his case 鈥� until she realized that he didn鈥檛 know how to operate a vending machine.

鈥淗e was under extreme stress and anxiety and not understanding a lot of the communication,鈥� she said. 鈥淎sking him a month-plus out, 鈥榳hat were you doing on October 4鈥欌�攖here鈥檚 no way he can provide a good memory. So you have someone who鈥檚 intellectually disabled fumbling it, and sounding like somebody fumbling it.鈥�

But for the detectives, Rocky鈥檚 admission that he鈥檇 initially lied along with his erratic account of the timeline and the statements they had from Butch, Roadrunner, and Marzell saying that they saw Rocky with the VCR was all they needed. Cool Breeze was released, and Rocky was charged with the capital murder of Ludie Mae Tucker.

Two years later, Rocky鈥檚 trial began. The prosecutor told the jury a straightforward story: Rocky鈥檚 drug addiction had overwhelmed his judgment, and after Butch refused to give him crack on credit he broke into Ludie Mae鈥檚 house and killed her for her VCR. But there were parts of the prosecution鈥檚 story that didn鈥檛 add up.

To start, multiple witnesses described Rocky鈥檚 attire the night they saw him at the shot house as black or dark brown rather than the light-colored shirt that Ludie Mae and her cousin said their assailant was wearing. And Roadrunner testified that Cool Breeze had also been at the shot house on multiple occasions that night, at one point 鈥渟weating real hard鈥� and wearing a white sweatshirt with blood on it. Rocky had terrible eczema鈥攅ven the detectives who interrogated him noted his flaky, scaly skin鈥攜et despite the prosecution鈥檚 contention that he鈥檇 been in a violent struggle with Ludie Mae, no skin flakes were found at the scene.

Roadrunner also testified that the alley leading to the shot house was a well-known stash spot, saying that he himself had frequently found and hidden stolen goods and drugs there. Police arrived at Ludie Mae鈥檚 house just minutes after her frantic 911 call, making it plausible that the assailant had stashed the VCR in the nearby alley once he heard sirens approaching the area. In fact, there was no evidence at all that Rocky had been at the scene of the crime aside from his possession of a VCR.

鈥淭hey had all these people, witnesses coming up, and they would have a given name and a nickname, and then a street nickname,鈥� said Mae Puckett, a juror who served on the case. 鈥淏ut with every nickname came a different version of the story.鈥�

Finally, Rocky took the stand. He testified that on the afternoon of Ludie Mae鈥檚 murder he鈥檇 bought crack from Butch and smoked it back at his house. He鈥檇 planned to go to a club with his in-laws but when he arrived at their house, they鈥檇 already left. On his way back home he said he spotted the VCR hidden under a bush in the alley, took it to the shot house that night, and traded it to Butch for a $20 rock of crack. But he was adamant in stating that he had nothing to do with Ludie Mae鈥檚 murder.

Rocky鈥檚 testimony raised critical questions. Why would Ludie Mae have believed that her neighbor needed to use her phone to call his family after a car crash, and why didn鈥檛 she identify him to police as her attacker before she died? Years later, Mamie Dutton, her cousin, told a lawyer working on Rocky鈥檚 appeal that she and Ludie Mae had seen Rocky across the street earlier that day, and Ludie Mae had mentioned that she knew him from the times he鈥檇 knocked on her door to ask for ice. And Rocky surely knew that Ludie Mae lived alone 鈥� yet on the night of the murder, Dutton said she鈥檇 heard her cousin tell her attacker that her husband was in the other room.

Puckett, the juror, noticed these holes in the prosecutors鈥� case. 鈥淚t was the state鈥檚 place to prove that Rocky Myers was in the home and committed that crime. In my mind it never happened,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 kept waiting for that word that was going to tell me what happened and there was never one. There was never that aha moment.鈥�

But Puckett says the deck felt stacked against Rocky from the beginning. During jury selection, one juror said that if a suspect made it through a grand jury he was 鈥渁utomatically guilty.鈥� And she remembers that another juror kept referring to the VCR as 鈥渞abbit tracks鈥� that proved his guilt. A decade after the trial, when Keeton took over Rocky鈥檚 appeal she interviewed another juror who openly used a vicious racial slur to refer to Rocky and called him a 鈥渢hug.鈥�

Puckett recalls that at least three other jurors didn鈥檛 believe there was enough evidence to convict Rocky. But as hard as they tried, Puckett and the others who shared her uncertainty couldn鈥檛 get the rest to budge. Eleven of the 12 jurors were white, and most were set on voting guilty.

According to Puckett, the group of unconvinced jurors feared that if they didn鈥檛 find a compromise, the outcome of the trial would be a hung jury. In that case, Rocky would be retried in front of a new jury that could have even fewer sympathetic members, and increasing the chances that he would be sentenced to death. So they reached an agreement: they would vote for a guilty verdict along with the rest in exchange for a recommendation of life without parole. 鈥淲e were dealing with ourselves trying to come up with a way to save his life,鈥� Puckett said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 what it boiled down to.鈥�

Rocky was thus convicted of capital murder, and by a margin of 9-3 the jury provided their agreed-upon recommendation of life without parole to the judge. The verdict came as a stunning blow to Rocky, who鈥檇 been convinced that the trial would end with his acquittal. 鈥淚 was very surprised,鈥� he said in a phone interview. 鈥淚 thought I was going to go back to New Jersey.鈥�

A few months later, Puckett was at her home outside of Decatur when she got a call from one of the other jurors. The judge who鈥檇 presided over the case had exercised his option of 鈥渏udicial override,鈥� discarding the jury鈥檚 recommendation of life without parole and sentencing Rocky to die instead. From the bench, he said the jury had been too 鈥渆motional鈥� in choosing not to recommend the death penalty on its own and described Rocky as a 鈥渢hreat to society.鈥�

鈥淚 never thought for a moment that he did it,鈥� said Puckett, her voice cracking. 鈥淲e struggled over [our decision] for good reason. And if we were emotional, it was valid. How could someone do that without emotion? Would you want someone like that on a jury?鈥�

Since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Gregg v. Georgia that capital punishment was constitutional, only three states have ever allowed the practice of 鈥渏udicial override鈥� in death penalty cases: Florida, Delaware, and Alabama. In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Florida鈥檚 judicial override statute was unconstitutional. That same year, Delaware鈥檚 Supreme Court banned the practice in that state.

Of the three states, Alabama鈥檚 use of judicial override was the most notorious. Before the practice was banned by the state legislature in 2017, an Alabama-based legal advocacy organization called the Equal Justice Initiative calculated that 20 percent of inmates on death row in Alabama had their sentences imposed through judicial override. Three-quarters of such cases involved a white victim, though only 35 percent of homicide victims in the state are white.

In 1998, a young Tennessee-based lawyer named Earle J. Schwarz agreed to represent Rocky in his post-conviction appeals. Until 2017 Alabama did not automatically provide counsel to death row inmates during this stage of their appeal, so the American Bar Association and other legal advocacy groups sought out lawyers like Schwarz to work pro bono on death penalty appeals in the state.

Schwarz worked on Rocky鈥檚 case for over five years, as it made its way through the state appeals process. In 2003, he received notice that Rocky鈥檚 petition for a post-conviction appeal had been denied by the state. The next step was to prepare to file a federal habeas petition. 鈥淔ederal habeas corpus review is a critical stage in a death penalty case, because it allows death row prisoners to bring federal constitutional claims that were heard in state court but were not successful,鈥� said Anna Arceneaux, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Capital Punishment Project. 鈥淎nd federal court鈥攚here judges are appointed and not elected鈥攊s a very different atmosphere for a prisoner.鈥�

But by then, Schwarz had begun working at a new law firm, and inexplicably, he didn鈥檛 tell Rocky that his state appeal had been denied. This was a devastating moment, though Rocky wouldn鈥檛 know it for another year. 鈥淢r. Schwarz decided that he could no longer represent Rocky, but unfortunately he just sat in a room and said that quietly to himself,鈥� said Keeton. 鈥淗e didn鈥檛 tell Rocky, he didn鈥檛 call the courts and let them know, he didn鈥檛 tell the prosecutors, he just quit doing anything.鈥� (In an email, Schwarz said that when he joined the new firm, he lost a four-person team working on Rocky鈥檚 case. 鈥淚 should have returned the file to the Equal Justice Initiative at that time; I did not; that鈥檚 on me,鈥� he wrote.)

A year later, Rocky received a letter from the state Attorney General鈥檚 office saying that he鈥檇 missed the deadline to file any further habeas corpus petitions and notifying him that Alabama would be moving to set an execution date. Rocky, who could only read at a third-grade level, had to ask another prisoner to read the letter aloud to him.

In a recent interview, Rocky said when he realized what the letter meant, 鈥淚t scared the hell out of me. I mean literally, I didn鈥檛 know what to do. I was shaking and I couldn鈥檛 breathe. A couple of guys calmed me down and told me what to do.鈥�

The prisoner who鈥檇 read the letter to Rocky was represented by the Equal Justice Initiative, and he reached out to the organization to ask for help. Frantically, attorneys working there filed a petition with the Capital Habeas Unit of the Federal Defender Office for the Middle District of Alabama, asking if defenders assigned to the unit could take up Rocky鈥檚 case. But it was too late. The state of Alabama argued that Schwarz鈥檚 failings were irrelevant, contending that the burden had been on Rocky to stay on top of his case. The US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit agreed. 鈥淸They] said, yes, we showed that Schwarz鈥檚 failures were a problem, but that Rocky even with his intellectual disability had to show some level of diligence on his part,鈥� said Keeton. 鈥淲e had affidavits that showed [habeas corpus] language is above college level in terms of reading and understanding, and that Rocky reads at approximately a third or fourth grade level, so that will never make sense to me.鈥�

鈥淎 lot of people think that people on death row know the law, they know this-or-that, but I don鈥檛,鈥� said Rocky. 鈥淚 give all my trust to my attorneys and stuff. If I could read the law in the books and learn and study, I would. But I鈥檓 not able to do that. I鈥檓 not a learnable type of person.鈥�

In Alabama, state judges are elected by popular vote, and they often emphasize their 鈥渢ough-on-crime鈥� record while campaigning. According to another Equal Justice Initiative study, the use of judicial overrides to dole out death sentences in Alabama often spiked during election years. In 2013 the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to Alabama鈥檚 judicial override statute, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent that judges in the state 鈥渁ppear to have succumbed to electoral pressures.鈥� In Rocky鈥檚 case, the judge who imposed his sentence was facing re-election the next year.

Although the practice is now no longer permitted in Alabama, the law passed by the Legislature wasn鈥檛 retroactive鈥攚hich means that anyone put on death row by judicial override stayed there despite the Legislature鈥檚 tacit acknowledgement that the practice was unjust.

After his conviction Rocky was transferred to Holman Correctional Facility, where Alabama carries out its death sentences. His trial lawyers filed an appeal, unsuccessfully. Once the appeal of a death row inmate鈥檚 initial conviction is denied, there is a lengthy, byzantine post-conviction process which can last for decades. The habeas corpus process offers inmates the chance to present new evidence in their cases and dispute the underlying rationale that led to their conviction. This is the stage in the death penalty process where many sentences have been overturned on the basis of poor representation by counsel at trial, procedural errors, the recanting of witness testimonies, or new evidence of misconduct by prosecution, police, or juries.

While fighting for a deadline extension in court, lawyers working on Rocky鈥檚 case heard a shocking story from Marzell Ewing, Rocky鈥檚 acquaintance who had testified to having seen him trade the VCR in the shot house. Around the time homicide detectives shifted their focus away from Cool Breeze, Marzell was arrested while driving a stolen car in Decatur. Marzell told the attorneys that one detective had offered to make the arrest disappear if he would say that he鈥檇 seen Rocky bring the VCR to Butch at the shot house.

In a declaration that Marzell signed in late 2004, he said his testimony during Rocky鈥檚 trial was 鈥渘ot truthful. I did not see who brought the VCR to the shot house that night.鈥� He further stated that 鈥淒etective Boyd told me that he would take the stolen car that I had been driving and leave it by the side of the road.鈥� Police reports from the time support his story: two suspects were indeed arrested in a stolen vehicle matching the one described by Marzell on Oct. 28, 1991, the same day Boyd鈥檚 notes indicate he first interviewed Marzell.

The evidence that police in Decatur tampered with at least one witness was a bombshell. It didn鈥檛 entirely contradict the prosecution鈥檚 narrative鈥擱ocky had, after all, already admitted to trading the VCR to Butch鈥攂ut it raised powerful questions about the conduct of Decatur police during the investigation. In federal court, Marzell鈥檚 declaration along with Puckett鈥檚 account of the jury鈥檚 compromise verdict might at a minimum have called his death sentence into question, if not the conviction itself. But it still wasn鈥檛 enough. A federal judge ruled that Marzell鈥檚 new statement didn鈥檛 override Rocky鈥檚 failure to meet the habeas corpus deadline; even with the new evidence, the case was effectively closed. With the door to judicial review shut, the only remaining relief was鈥攁nd still is鈥攊ntervention by Alabama鈥檚 Governor Kay Ivey.

Schwarz later admitted to negligence, signing a declaration that said he 鈥渄id not tell Mr. Myers I was no longer representing him,鈥� and that he 鈥渄id not inform Mr. Myers that I would not pursue relief on his behalf in federal court.鈥� The Board of Professional Responsibility of the Supreme Court of Tennessee issued a public censure to him in 2005, saying that he 鈥渨illfully neglected his representation of his client.鈥�

In 2018, Schwarz was elected president of the Memphis Bar Association, which states that one of its purposes is to 鈥渆ncourage and assist lawyers in maintaining and improving their competence so that they can better serve their clients and the public.鈥� Rocky Myers remains on death row.

Rocky lives under near-constant lockdown at Holman, sometimes going days without yard time due to staff shortages in the Alabama Department of Corrections. In a phone interview in early February, he described a somber atmosphere on the prison鈥檚 death row, where a friend of his named Dominique Ray was scheduled to be executed the week we spoke. 鈥淎t times like this is when everybody鈥檚 mostly quiet,鈥� he said. 鈥淭V is down real low, you could kinda hear a pin drop.鈥� Days later, Ray was executed after the US Supreme Court denied his request to have an imam present in the lethal injection chamber.

鈥淲hen I鈥檓 praying, I tell the Lord I鈥檓 terrified,鈥� Rocky said. 鈥淚 just don鈥檛 show it because it don鈥檛 do any good to other people. But inside in my mind and heart and stomach, I鈥檓 scared.鈥�

A former church drummer, Rocky attends services regularly, singing in a choir that meets once a week. His children are now grown, with children of their own, some of whom he met during a visit for the first time last year. Rocky says that being separated from his family has taken a toll: 鈥淚t鈥檚 one of the worst things that I鈥檓 going through. I have grandkids that are growing up without me.鈥�

Rocky鈥檚 legal team checks in on him regularly with in-person visits or by phone. 鈥淕etting him to understand what鈥檚 happening in his case at any given moment is definitely a challenge,鈥� Keeton said. 鈥淲e have clients who send us written communications, but Rocky can鈥檛 write anything to us.鈥�

In 2012, an execution date was set for Rocky, but Keeton managed to add his name to litigation challenging Alabama鈥檚 lethal injection protocol. That litigation was dropped last year after the state agreed to offer asphyxiation by nitrogen gas as an execution option. Now, Alabama is working on a protocol for the new method, after which Rocky will be given a new execution date.

The only chance for Rocky to avoid execution now is a grant of clemency from Governor Kay Ivey. Both he and Keeton know it鈥檚 a long-shot, and initially he told her not to pursue it. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 want to be over here begging for my life and stuff like that,鈥� he said. But Keeton persisted. 鈥淭he fact that we are potentially executing a man who did not have his day in court because an attorney screwed up should give everybody pause,鈥� Keeton said.

Rocky says it鈥檚 been frustrating to watch other prisoners get breaks in their case and be released while he鈥檚 been effectively shut out of court. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of people who support the death penalty,鈥� he said, 鈥淏ut to know that there are people on death row that is or could be innocent鈥攈ow can you support that, you know?鈥�

This piece was originally published at .