Attorney General speaks out on Magwood decision

He was a 10-year-old Elba Elementary School student when Billy Joe Magwood shot and killed then-Coffee County Sheriff Neil Grantham on March 1, 1979.
“It was the defining moment in my decision to go into into law enforcement,” Alabama Attorney General Troy King said Monday afternoon. “That an elementary school boy went on to high school, college, law school and has become the attorney general of this state and the case is still delayed is an affront to 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.
King expects the nation’s highest court to hear the case in the spring and is “cautiously optimistic” that a decision will be made by early summer. “This terrible tragedy has spanned 30 years,” King said. “It is illustration that sometimes justice delayed can be justice denied.”
King does not necessarily view Monday’s decision by the United States Supreme Court as bad news. “Our gratification with this ruling is that we have moved one step closer, there is one less hurdle before justice is done.
“On many occasions before today, we have believed that justice was soon to be served, only to be faced with delays based on technicalities,” King said. “Sheriff Grantham’s family and I look forward to seeing this appeal exhausted and a death sentence set.”
During Magwood’s murder trial, Coffee County Deputy Sheriff Thomas Weeks testified that 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 the 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. He said he saw Magwood get back into the car with a pistol in his hand.
No one else was in the vicinity, Weeks said, and when Magwood was arrested, he had a written list of other Elba citizens he planned to shoot.
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 the 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 sentence being vacated in 2007. Magwood asserted multiple issues on 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.” Magwood asserts counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate and present any evidence at his resentencing.