Alabama violated constitutional rights of man sentenced to death, court rules

A federal appeals court ruled that Alabama prosecutors violated the constitutional rights of a Black man who was sentenced to death in 1990, noting that Black people were rejected from the jury during his trial.

Michael Sockwell, 62, is now eligible for a retrial after ruling on Monday by a three-judge panel on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. He was convicted of killing former Montgomery County Sheriff Isaiah Harris in 1988 when he was 26-years-old.

In a 2-1 opinion, the panel ruled that Alabama prosecutors violated Sockwell’s 14th Amendment rights by “repeatedly and purposefully” rejecting potential Black jurors who were believed to be more sympathetic since they shared the same race.

Prosecutors argued that Harris’ wife hired Sockwell to kill Harris because she wanted to cover up an affair she was having and collect her husband’s insurance money.

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There were no witnesses to the shooting and Sockwell initially told officials in a videotaped confession that he killed Harris. During his trial, Sockwell testified that officers threatened to beat and kill him before his confession and that they deprived him of food and water.

Sockwell then testified that the man who was having an affair with Harris’ wife killed the former sheriff. Sockwell also denied ever receiving money to kill Harris.

Attorneys for Sockwell say he has a low IQ that disqualifies him from the death penalty.

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The jury voted 7-5 to sentence Sockwell to life in prison, but the judge overruled the decision and sentenced him to death. Alabama no longer allows a judge to override a jury’s sentence in capital cases.

Sockwell’s attorneys appealed the decision, arguing that the prosecutors unconstitutionally used race as the basis for jury selection and rejected 80% of the potential Black jurors who were eligible for his trial, compared to only 20% of White jurors who were rejected. The appeal pointed to notes from the prosecutor that rejected one juror who she described as “a Black male, approximately twenty-three years of age, which would put him very close to the same race, sex, and age of” Sockwell.

Judge Robert J. Luck, an appointee of President Donald Trump, dissented, arguing that the prosecutor noted the race of potential White jurors too, which the judge said indicated race was not a disqualifying factor for jurors in Sockwell’s case.

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The opinion written by Judge Charles Wilson, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, also cited four other cases in the years leading up to Sockwell’s case, in which the state prosecutor appeared to have illegally rejected Black jurors based solely on their race, demonstrating a “pattern” of choosing juries with “discriminatory intent.”

Luck pushed back on the claim that the prosecutor had a pattern of discrimination, saying 17% of the jury in Sockwell’s trial was Black out of a jury pool that was 24% Black to begin with.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.