Unless Someone Steps in, Tennessee Will Kill a Man Next Week

Capital punishment is bad public policy. It is costly for revenue-strapped states; it has never been proven to be a deterrent to crime; death sentences are handed down capriciously; and there's always the kindergarten wisdom that two wrongs don't make a right. The manifold inherent problems with the death penalty are exacerbated by prosecutorial misconduct and ill-equipped public defenders.

Next week in Tennessee, if needle-happy Attorney General Paul Summers gets his way, we will kill Sedley Alley (pictured). I oppose executing Alley regardless of whether he is guilty. But, as is usual in the cases of poor people on death row, serious questions have been raised regarding Alley's trial. From the (granted, not unbiased) National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP):

The state of Tennessee is scheduled to execute Sedley Alley for the 1985 abduction and murder of Suzanne Collins near Naval Air Station Memphis in Millington. The execution has been scheduled despite serious concerns about the reliability of his conviction.

Evidence withheld from the defense at trial indicates that police had Alley under surveillance at the time of the homicide. The coroner’s report indicates that the Ms. Collins died no earlier than 1:30 a.m. on the morning of July 12, 1985, yet police had arrested Alley at 12:10 a.m. that same morning and had kept him under surveillance after releasing him. This evidence, which had been withheld for 20 years, seriously calls into question Alley’s guilt, since the police’s own records show that he was not present at the time of the victim’s death.

No governor has ever heeded my pleas to commute a death sentence, but I suppose I should write Governor Bredesen a letter anyway. If you live in the Volunteer State, you should too. Visit the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing or the NCADP for contact information.