Former Coffee County Sheriff's family hopes for justice

The family of murdered Coffee County Sheriff Neil Grantham is “cautiously optimistic” that the man who killed their husband, brother and father 30 years ago will receive justice.
The United States Supreme Court Monday agreed to hear convicted murderer Billy Joe Magwood’s appeal in a case that has spanned three decades. The facts of Magwood’s offense are not in dispute, according to a legal opinion written Jan. 23, 2009. by the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. What is in dispute, according to court documents, is Magwood’s assertion that the district court “erred in denying him discovery and an evidentiary hearing on his claim he was denied effective assistance of counsel.” Magwood asserts counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate and present any evidence.
“This has been a 30-year nightmare,” Grantham’s son, Kenneth, said from his Elba office Monday. “It’s just time for closure.”
Grantham said a “celebration of life,” was held at the site of his father’s death outside the old county jail in Elba on the 25th anniversary of the shooting. “We wanted to treat it as a celebration of the life he had lived.”
As the family has watched the years roll by, Grantham said, “it’s hard not be feel that the system he fought and died for has let him down.”
At the time of Grantham’s death, Coffee County Deputy Sheriff Thomas Weeks testified he was employed as the county jailer on March 1, 1979, under Coffee County Sheriff Neil Grantham, according to the legal opinion Weeks told the court he observed Magwood, whom he recognized as a former jail inmate, sitting in a car parked in Grantham’s parking space at approximately 6:45 a.m. Shortly before 7 a.m., he observed Grantham drive up and park his vehicle, Weeks said. He got out of the automobile, walked to some garbage cans and deposited a trash bag and then walked toward the jail door.
Weeks said Magwood exited from his automobile “with something in his hand” and met Grantham at the rear of the car. At that point, Weeks said he heard three gunshots and saw Grantham fall. Weeks said he saw Magwood get back into the car with a pistol in his hand.
No one else was in the vicinity, Grantham’s son said, and when Magwood was arrested, he had a written list of other Elba citizens he planned to shoot. One of those men was the late Drexel Cook, grandfather-in-law of 12th Judicial Circuit Chief District Attorney Tom Anderson “This case is a vivid reminder of the trauma that the criminal justice system often inflicts on families,” Anderson said Monday. “The Granthams are friends of mine and the fact that they still are not able to put this matter behind them after 30 long years is an affront to them and an affront to justice”
Magwood was convicted June 2, 1981, and the conviction and death sentence were upheld by state courts and the U.S. Supreme Court through direct appeals and again by state courts regarding a subsequent petition. In 1985, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama upheld the conviction, but required a new sentencing hearing for consideration of additional mitigating circumstances.
Magwood was again sentenced to death, and the sentence was upheld by state appeals courts. Another appeal that began in 1997 before the U.S. District Court resulted in Magwood’s death sentence being vacated in 2007. Magwood asserts multiple issues on his cross-appeal, according to court documents. “Specifically, he asserts the district court erred in denying him discovery and an evidentiary hearing on his claim he was denied effective assistance of counsel.”