ATMORE, Ala.—It’s hard for Sonny Burton to wipe the smile off his face.

“I dodged death,” he told Tread inside the visitor’s room at Holman Correctional Facility, the maximum-security prison where death row is housed.

It was true. Burton had been just two days away from Alabama prison guards strapping a gas mask to his face and suffocating him, an act of state-sanctioned violence three decades in the making.

Burton, 75, was slated to be executed for the murder of Doug Battle during the robbery of a Talladega AutoZone in 1991. But even prosecutors conceded that Burton did not fire the shot that killed Battle. He did not fire a shot at all. While he had admittedly participated in the robbery, Burton had been outside the building when another man, Derrick DeBruce, shot and killed Battle.

Despite that, under Alabama’s felony murder rule, Burton was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death.

More than three decades later, Burton was just two days away from his planned execution. The Alabama Department of Corrections was making its final preparations to secure the man’s death.

But God had other plans, Burton said. He smiled from ear to ear as he took a bite of a Reese’s cup his family had just bought him from the vending machine a few feet away. A can of Coca-Cola and his helmet, issued by the prison to reduce the risks of fall injuries, sat on the table in front of him.

“People keep asking me, and I keep telling them,” Burton said. “I feel good. I feel super good.”

For months, Burton had been praying for mercy. A devout Muslim, he’d been frustrated that his advanced rheumatoid arthritis prevented him from getting on his knees to pray.

“So I’d pray from bed,” he said. “I asked God to soften the governor’s heart.”

The divine intervention Burton had been praying for had come the day before, when Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a term-limited Republican, commuted his death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“I cannot proceed in good conscience with the execution of Mr. Burton under such disparate circumstances,” Ivey wrote in a statement announcing her decision. “I believe it would be unjust for one participant in this crime to be executed while the participant who pulled the trigger was not.”

Burton had been in this very room when he’d received the news. There’d been a flurry of movement outside the visitor’s room, he explained. Guards and other prison staff started high-fiving each other. They began to gather in the windowed hallway that surrounds the room where Burton sat in his wheelchair.

“Sonny got clemency,” he recalled someone screaming. The gathered staff began to clap. Burton couldn’t believe his ears and eyes. He took a deep breath and took it all in.

“A tear was in my eye,” Burton said. “God was with me. God gave me life.”

A week before, the grim reality that his execution date was creeping ever-closer was beginning to set in for Burton. But he wasn’t fearful or nervous.

In an interview with Tread, Burton said he felt at peace.

“God’s got me calm,” he said, his voice slow and deliberate.

But there were a few things on his mind as his appointed death date drew nearer, Burton said.

“I want Doug Battle’s daughter to know that I take full responsibility for what I did that day,” he said. “Full responsibility.”

Then, there was the cloud of the execution itself.

“I really try not to think about it,” he said. “But I do worry about it.”

If Burton’s execution had proceeded, he would have been only the ninth human being subjected to a state-sanctioned nitrogen execution in United States history. Burton had listened to accounts of the suffocations of his brothers on the row. Kenny Smith. Alan Miller. Demetrius Frazier. Carey Grayson. Geoffrey West.

The nitrogen suffocation of Anthony Boyd, the latest to take place in Alabama, was the longest in the method’s history, with Boyd gasping for air more than 225 times before he died.

All of that simmered in the back of Burton’s mind.

“I worry that I’ll still be alive,” he said. “Still alive but struggling to breathe.”

And then there was a final, lingering question.

“What’s on my mind is the governor,” he explained. “Will she grant me clemency?”

Burton made a final appeal. He had a message for Ivey, he told Tread.

“I’m a good person,” he said. “I just made some bad choices.”

If the execution were to proceed, Burton said, he believed that both Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall should be required to watch the killing.

“If they want to kill a man, they should have to watch it,” Burton said.

And if the state were to secure his death, Burton said he hoped that people would remember one thing.

“That I didn’t do what the state accused me of doing,” he said. “I ain’t murder nobody.”

A week later, as Burton sat in his wheelchair in Holman’s visitor’s room, he said he’d always believed that Ivey would do the right thing.

“I’ve heard people say that she’s a woman so she can’t do a man’s job,” Burton said. “But I’ve seen what she can do. She did the right thing.”

Not everyone in the state applauded Ivey’s decision to grant Burton mercy. The state’s attorney general said he was “deeply disappointed” in Ivey’s commutation—only the third in the state’s history.

“While the media has done its best to paint Mr. Burton as a harmless, decrepit old man, he is a murderer,” Marshall, who is running for U.S. Senate, said in a statement. “There has never been any doubt that Sonny Burton has Douglas Battle’s blood on his hands.”

Burton’s eyes filled with tears as he listened to Marshall’s statement read aloud.

“Well, he got to me,” he said. “But he’s the one that’s angry. And he lies. I didn’t murder anyone. Doug Battle’s blood is not on my hands.”

Marshall’s comments are a reflection of his own heart, Burton said, not a reflection of Sonny’s.

“Real Christians wouldn’t say things like that,” Burton said of Marshall’s comments. “I don’t believe he’s a Christian.”

Burton thought for a moment. He remembered all of the men he’d known on the row who’d been killed by the state, one after another. 73 men since he arrived on the row. 25 since Marshall became the state’s top prosecutor.

“Their blood is on his hands,” Burton said. “What will Steve Marshall tell God when he meets him? What will he say to Jesus?”

Burton and his family said they are deeply grateful to Gov. Ivey.

Still, they know the realities of the hard road ahead. Burton is still sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, having already served 32 years.

“At least he doesn’t have that cloud over him anymore,” Eddie Mae Ellison, Burton’s sister, said. “It’s a start.”

She and other members of Burton’s family had crisscrossed the state advocating for mercy for their loved one, including holding vigil outside the governor’s mansion in Montgomery.

Burton said he believes Ivey set his execution date before granting him clemency because she wanted him to feel the doom of his impending death.

“She wanted me to suffer,” he said. “She wanted me to know ‘You ain’t getting off that easy.’”

And while, ultimately, Burton believes she did the right thing in commuting his sentence, he said he knows in his heart that justice hasn’t yet been fully served.

“I believe I’ve served my time,” Burton said. “And I ain’t got much longer to live.”

He wants to leave the walls of Alabama’s prisons, Burton said, to spend time with his family and live out his remaining days in peace.

He thinks the sentences of his brothers on the row should be commuted, too, and that the governor should reinstate a moratorium on executions.

And for now, Sonny Burton is simply glad he’s alive to live another day.

“I can see another week now,” he said, his smile brightening the room. “And another week after that. And another after that.”

ATMORE, Ala.—Gov. Kay Ivey has commuted Sonny Burton’s sentence of death. She made the announcement Tuesday morning.

Barring further legal developments, Burton , 75, will now serve the remainder of his life in prison without the possibility of parole

Burton is wheelchair bound and wears a helmet to reduce fall risks.

For more than three decades, Burton has served on Alabama’s death row for his role in the 1991 robbery of a Talladega AutoZone. During the robbery, one of five people who’d arrived with Burton, Derrick DeBruce, shot and killed Doug Battle, a customer who’d walked into the store.

Burton admits that he was one of the men who participated in the robbery, but no one—including the state—disputes that Burton did not kill Battle. Testimony in the case showed that Burton wasn’t inside the building when the fatal shot was fired.

“Not only did he not kill anyone, but he didn’t order anyone to kill anyone,” said Matt Schulz, one of Burton’s lawyers. “He didn’t hire anyone to kill anyone. He didn’t tell anyone to kill anyone. He literally did not even see anyone kill anyone.”

Read more about Sonny’s case here.

Following the announcement, Burton thanked the governor in a written statement.

“She has proven to the people of Alabama, and the world, that she is a responsible Governor,” Burton said. “And I thank her. Just saying thank you doesn’t seem like much. But it’s what I can give her. And I do thank her. Thank you, Governor.”

Ivey’s office released the following statement at the time of her decision:

“I firmly believe that the death penalty is just punishment for society’s most heinous offenders, as shown by the 25 executions I have presided over as governor. In order to ensure the continued viability of the death penalty, however, I also believe that a government’s most consequential action must be administered fairly and proportionately.

“Doug Battle was brutally murdered by Derrick DeBruce while shopping in an auto parts store. But DeBruce was ultimately sentenced to life without parole. Charles Burton did not shoot the victim, did not direct the triggerman to shoot the victim and had already left the store by the time the shooting occurred. Yet Mr. Burton was set to be executed while DeBruce was allowed to live out his life in prison.

“I cannot proceed in good conscience with the execution of Mr. Burton under such disparate circumstances. I believe it would be unjust for one participant in this crime to be executed while the participant who pulled the trigger was not.

“To be clear, Mr. Burton will not be eligible for parole and will rightfully spend the remainder of his life behind bars for his role in the robbery that led to the murder of Doug Battle. He will now receive the same punishment as the triggerman.

“The murder of Doug Battle was a senseless and tragic crime, and this decision does not diminish the profound loss felt by the Battle family. I pray that they may find peace and closure.”

Tread will continue to update this story as it develops.

NOTE: This article contains strong language and descriptions of racial violence.

SPRINGVILLE, Ala.—Rocky Myers sees the best in everyone. He can’t help it.

“I’m a Christian man, and I love the Lord,” Myers said in an interview from St. Clair Correctional Facility, where he’s serving his 32nd year of a life without parole sentence. “I try to look at everybody in the best light.”

So when the Black Alabamian’s legal team began to outline for him the extensive evidence of his trial lawyer’s deep relationship with the Ku Klux Klan, he was stunned.

“I thought, ‘Lord, have mercy,’” he said. “This is so sad.”

But slowly, things began to click.

John Mays, who served as the lead lawyer for Myers’ defense team at his trial, spent years defending the Klan and its members in both criminal and civil matters, according to court documents and press reports from the time.

Mays did not respond to a request for comment on this article, but in an interview with investigator Leah Nelson, a member of Myers’ legal team, he denied ever being a member of the white supremacist organization. Asked about contemporaneous newspaper reporting that the KKK had dubbed him Imperial Counsel, Mays rebuffed her. He’d been offered the title by Grand Wizard Robert Shelton, he said, but he’d never accepted. And she’d gotten the title wrong, he added: “It’s Imperial Klonsel.”

But Mays’ involvement with the United Klans of America, founded by Shelton, who Mays calls “Bob,” appears to have gone well beyond a courtroom relationship.

Contemporaneous media accounts document Mays’ attendance at Klan rallies and cross burnings across the South during the 1970s and 1980s, including in Alabama, Florida, Virginia, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee. He appears in a newspaper photograph at a Klan rally in Gadsden, Alabama, his right hand holding up a United Klans of America banner. Another press photograph shows him speaking to the gathered crowd.

For Rocky Myers and his current legal team, these are not benign extracurricular activities. Instead, they argue, Mays’ affiliation with the Klan, paired with his poor performance at trial, is clear evidence of a conflict of interest that left Myers facing a life of incarceration and, at the time, the death penalty.

Still, these new revelations—May’s lengthy history with the Klan, recently put together for the first time in the context of Myers’ conviction and sentences—were hard for Rocky Myers to swallow. He’d been duped. A man who’d told him he’d try to save his life had, just a few years prior, stood in front of a Klan rally and declared his allegiance to the white supremacist organization.

“You hear a lot about civil rights of niggers and the civil rights of murderers and of every kind of pervert known to humanity,” a press account quoted Mays as saying at a Klan rally and cross burning in Richmond, Virginia. “But what about the civil rights of the decent law abiding white man or the law abiding black man, for that matter?”

The more Myers thought about Mays, though, the more things began to fall in place.

Myers remembered how Mays would often make friendly chitchat with the prosecutor during lulls in Myers’ trial for the murder of Ludie Mae Tucker, an older white Decatur woman who died after being stabbed during the course of a robbery.

"My son would get mad,” Myers said of Mays’ apparent friendship with Myers’ prosecutor. “He wondered why Mays was hanging out with the enemy.”

Ultimately, Mays would fail Rocky Myers. Despite no physical evidence and conflicting testimony about his involvement, Myers was eventually convicted of murder. Although a jury recommended life in prison for Myers, an Alabama judge chose to sentence him to death instead.

In 2025, though, Myers received a nearly unprecedented reprieve: a commutation of his death sentence by Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a term-limited Republican who’s presided over two dozen executions in the state.

“…In the case of Ludie Mae Tucker’s murder, I have enough questions about Mr. Myers’ guilt that I cannot move forward with executing him,” Ivey wrote in a statement at the time. “For example, no murder weapon was found, and no DNA evidence or fingerprints or other physical evidence tied Mr. Myers to the scene of the crime.”

The commutation was only the second in Alabama history and the first by Ivey. The only other commutation in the modern era of the death penalty was that of Judith Ann Neeley in 1999—a reprieve that led state legislators to limit the governor’s power in such cases, requiring those whose lives would be spared by the governor to ultimately serve life without parole.

As of today, that remains Rocky Myers’ fate—life in prison without parole.

His legal team plans to change that.

Based on their extensive documentation of Mays’ connection with the KKK, Myers’ legal team has filed a Rule 32 petition asking a Morgan County judge to vacate their client’s conviction, arguing that Mays’ racial animus left Myers with virtually no representation at all.

Scott Anderson, Morgan County’s district attorney, asked the court in December for additional time to respond to Myers’ petition. It’s unclear whether Anderson plans to support or oppose Myers’ effort, but the elected official has until March 18 to decide.

A history of hate

Within a year of joining the Alabama bar in 1976, John Mays began a relationship with the Klan that would last for years.

1977 was a busy year for the newly minted lawyer. In April, at the behest of the Imperial Wizard, Mays sued the FBI on behalf of the Klan, arguing that the law enforcement agency had violated the civil rights of Klan members. Not only “blacks and Jews” have civil rights, Shelton was quoted as saying at the time. “The Klan does too.”

In July, he spoke at a Klan rally in Coffeeville, Alabama, alongside the organization’s grand dragon—its state leader—Chester Rockhold.

In September, he traveled with Shelton and Florida’s grand dragon to a Klan rally in Lakeland where he decried school integration.

Four days later, he spoke at another rally in Kentucky. The next day, he spoke at yet another in Richmond, according to press accounts.

The following year, 1978, media outlets document Mays’ continued leadership on Klan issues, speaking at white supremacist rallies in Gadsden, AL; Pascagoula, MS; and Munfordville, KY.

Miriam Bankston, an investigator for the Federal Defenders for the Middle District of Alabama, conducted the archival research that led to Myers’ effort to vacate his conviction over Mays’ apparent conflict of interest.

Bankston, a Black woman, said the more connections she found between Mays and the Klan, the angrier she became. For her, the fundamental issue with Mays’ representation of Myers comes down to one thing: choice. As a poor Black man in Alabama accused of killing a white woman, Myers had no choice but to accept the lawyer appointed to him by the court.

“Rocky didn’t have a choice,” Bankston said. “He got what he got.”

And what he got for a lawyer, she explained, was undeniably a Klansman.

By 1979, Mays was back in the courtroom and conducting press conferences on behalf of the Klan and its members.

In February, he complained to the media at a press conference in Sylacauga, Alabama, that Klan members were being harassed by law enforcement.

A few weeks later, he appeared alongside Shelton and Klansman Eugene Thomas, who Mays proclaimed had been wrongfully convicted of the murder of civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo.

In June 1979, Mays came to the legal defense of 11 Sylacauga Klansmen who’d been accused of terrorism, arguing in court that potential jurors who were Klan members should not be struck from service.

By 1980, Mays had made his allegiance clear. That much was evident to members of the press covering a Klan rally near Louisville in September of that year where Mays appeared alongside Tennessee Grand Dragon Don Henson.

“Henson and Mays bear testimony that the Klan is no longer destined to be clandestine and its members stereotyped,” the press account said. “Neither man wore a robe or hood and both professed their allegiance openly. Henson had a dark black beard and wore a brown suit and white shirt, open at the collar. Mays wore a suit and tie. Their espousals, though articulate, were unmistakenly and typically those of the Klan.”

In January 1981, Mays was thanked in the masthead of the Fiery Cross, the Klan’s propaganda newsletter, for contributions “that make this publication possible.”

In March 1981, Klan members in Mobile, Alabama, tortured and hanged Michael Donald, a Black teenager, a tragedy sometimes referred to as the last lynching in the United States.

Less than five months later, Mays made another appearance at a Klan rally and cross burning in Tennessee where he encouraged whites to prepare for the oncoming race war.

Leah Nelson, one of the attorneys on Myers’ team, said reading Mays’ comments from that rally, held in the wake of the Michael Donald lynching, made her stomach turn.

Before she dove into the archival history around Mays, Nelson said she was open-minded about whether the lawyer was simply a First Amendment absolutist—a zealous advocate always in search of a lost cause.

But calling for a race war in the shadow of a lynching of an innocent Black teenager, she said, was the point of no return.

“There’s just no way, in my mind, that any reasonable person, no matter how idealistic they might have been during the ‘70s—trying to be the John Lewis of the civil rights movement for white people—could think that was okay to say,” Nelson explained. “Your group tortured a teenager to death for no reason other than the color of his skin, and you show up five months later at a rally calling for race war.”

A few years later, Mays would go well beyond Nelson’s point of no return. Beginning in October 1984, Mays represented Robert Shelton in a civil suit filed against him by Beulah Mae Donald, Michael’s mother. Mays would go on to lose the case, resulting in a $7 million verdict that left the Klan bankrupt.

Just five years later, Mays would be appointed to represent Rocky Myers for the murder of Ludie Mae Tucker.

A downright denial

Once Leah Nelson had seen the extent of Mays’ involvement with the Klan, she knew someone had to visit the attorney, who still practices law in Decatur, a small city in the northern part of the state.

Nelson, who is Jewish, had moved to Alabama years earlier to work to track and document hate and extremism for the Southern Poverty Law Center, a Montgomery-based nonprofit. She saw the meeting with Mays as a culmination of that work—an opportunity to quite literally confront these ideas firsthand.

What she was ultimately faced with, though, was denial.

Mays told Nelson he is not and has never been a member of the Klan. He said he’d never spoken at Klan rallies or cross burnings. He was simply a good defense lawyer, he argued.

But Mays’ reputation among Alabama Klansmen isn’t simply that of a good lawyer. It’s that of a fellow member.

Billy Morris, a self-described Klan member living in Jefferson County, Alabama, told Tread News that Mays is well respected in Klan circles. Morris said that Mays served with his father as a member of the United Klans of America.

“I would like to sit down with him and speak with him before he passes away,” Morris said.

John M. Giggie, a professor of history and director of the Summersell Center for the Study of the South at the University of Alabama, is an expert on the Klan.

He said that it’s not unusual that older white men with deep Klan affiliations like Mays tend to shy away from public proclamations of their allegiances as the years go by.

“As one gets older, it’s very difficult to accept those truths about their past in part because you want those who love you to see you in a positive light,” he said. “So we see them distance themselves from their abuse—try to show it really wasn’t them or maybe that it’s something everyone did at the time—a general way to neuter the impact of their abuse.”

But the role of Klan lawyer has historically been one that did not come as a freelance role, Giggie said, but as a position of trust pivotal to the functioning of the extremist organization.

“This is the type of role that John Mays stepped into,” Giggie said. “There’s no way Robert Shelton would have appointed or turned to a lawyer that wasn’t in that mold—an aggressive and vigorous defender of Klan beliefs and Klan philosophy. That’s historically been the role of the Klan lawyer.”

All of the evidence, Giggie said, including Mays’ repeated representation of the Klan, his public statements and even the inclusion of his work in the Fiery Cross, beg the question of whether Rocky Myers could have been afforded a fair trial with John Mays as his defense attorney.

“It’s troubling,” Giggie said. “Very troubling.”

For Myers and his legal team, Mays’ deflections hold little weight.

“John Mays’ racism is evident today regardless of whether he ever carried a membership card or held the title of Imperial Klonsel,” their motion stated in part. “Mr. Myers respectfully requests this Court vacate his conviction and grant any such additional relief that is just, equitable, and proper.”

A Rocky road and a way forward

For more than three decades, Rocky Myers has been haunted by the injustices he knows happened in his case. He had always proclaimed his innocence. There was no physical evidence tying him to the crime. No DNA. No murder weapon. No matching fingerprints. Testimony during the trial was conflicting. Two of the witnesses who tied Myers to the events leading up the murder recanted after trial.

But as the years have passed, it’s the injustices he didn’t know about that keep Rocky Myers up at night. That his lawyer had represented the Klan. That his lawyer had personally represented the Imperial Wizard. It was hard to swallow.

And despite enough doubt about his guilt that Kay Ivey, a Republican governor, would spare his life through commutation, Myers still spends every moment of his life behind bars, locked away for a crime he’s always maintained he did not commit.

It’s frustrating, of course, but Myers said he has patience. He’s certain he’ll die a free man. He must.

His voice softened when he explained why.

“My daughter just had a brain aneurysm, and she’s been in the hospital for over three months,” he said. “She just came home two weeks ago and she needs me, and I need her.”

So Myers has faith. He has to.

It was just last year, he said, when he’d been notified the state’s attorney general had asked the Alabama Supreme Court to set his execution date. He’d begun preparing his family for his own death, telling them that clemency was a virtual impossibility.

Then came the call. His heart sank. He believed his lawyer, Kacey Keeton, was about to tell him the date he would die. She didn’t. His life had been spared for good.

“I thought I’d lost my mind,” Myers said. He began to cry. So did Keeton.

“It was beautiful,” he said.

That reprieve, Myers said, was a miracle. Now, as he continues to serve his life sentence in St. Clair Correctional Facility, he’s hoping for another.

“I’m getting out of here,” he said. “But these things just take time.”

Sonny Burton can no longer walk.

His loved ones worry that, should the time come, prison staffers will have to roll the 75-year-old into Alabama’s execution chamber on a gurney. One final indignity, they say, for a man the state admits never killed a soul.

And sometimes Eddie Mae Ellison worries that her older brother, Charles “Sonny” Burton, is already fading away.

Wheelchair bound and suffering from debilitating rheumatoid arthritis while living on Alabama’s death row, he can no longer move at all without a significant amount of pain.

“Help me!” He scrawled on a medical form to prison staffers in 2024.

“I feel misery,” he wrote on another form in January 2025. “Please help.”

The degenerative disease, which affects most of his body, limits his mobility and often leaves him in unbearable pain.

“It feels like somebody taking a knife and sticking it between your joints and trying to pry your joints loose,” Burton said.

Among the things that bother him most: he can no longer get on his knees to pray.

The Department of Corrections has provided him a helmet to limit his risk of falling: a protective measure ahead of the state’s planned attempt to put him to death.

In January, the Alabama Supreme Court paved the way for the Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to set Burton’s execution date.

Burton’s body is already failing him. Soon, barring court action or clemency, Alabama will execute him anyway.

Eddie Mae Ellison said she fears her brother’s days are already numbered, but she says the state doesn’t deserve to take away what time he has left.

Burton already calls his family less and less often. When they do speak, he’s sometimes hard to follow.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Ellison said. “Because mentally, he’s drifting away.”

But even in the shadow of the state’s effort to push forward with her brother’s execution, Ellison and those who know Burton are holding on to hope. It’s all they have.

On Thursday evening, Ellison sat in the front row of Montgomery’s Capri Theatre as her brother’s voice echoed around her. Burton’s family and legal team flanked her, all gathered in the state’s capital for the screening of a film documenting Burton’s case for reprieve from Alabama Governor Kay Ivey.

For more than three decades, Burton has served on Alabama’s death row for his role in the 1991 robbery of a Talladega AutoZone. During the robbery, one of five people who’d arrived with Burton, Derrick DeBruce, shot and killed Doug Battle, a customer who’d walked into the store.

Burton admits that he was one of the men who participated in the robbery, but no one—including the state—disputes that Burton did not kill Battle. Testimony in the case showed that Burton wasn’t inside the building when the fatal shot was fired.

“Not only did he not kill anyone, but he didn’t order anyone to kill anyone,” said Matt Schulz, one of Burton’s lawyers. “He didn’t hire anyone to kill anyone. He didn’t tell anyone to kill anyone. He literally did not even see anyone kill anyone.”

Jurors, victim’s daughter oppose execution

More than three decades after the crime and Burton’s conviction, nearly everyone involved in the case—with the apparent exception of state prosecutors—believes that Burton’s life should be spared.

Six of eight living jurors who voted to sentence Burton to death now say justice would be better served if the state spared his life. Three have explicitly asked Gov. Kay Ivey to grant Burton clemency.

Priscilla Townsend said she was young when she was a juror on the case all those years ago. In a letter to Gov. Ivey, she said her view on the case has changed.

“It didn’t sit right with me that someone who had not pulled the trigger was sentenced to be executed, and my heart went out to him,” she wrote.

If executed, Burton would be the only of the six participants in the 1991 robbery to be put to death for the murder. All six were charged with capital murder, but most pleaded to lesser charges to avoid the death penalty. Only Burton and DeBruce, the gunman, were sentenced to death. DeBruce’s capital sentence was ultimately overturned by a federal court, after which he was resentenced to life without parole, allowing the shooter to avoid the death penalty with the state’s approval.

Another of the jurors who sentenced Burton to death, James Cottongim, said that while nothing will truly make up for Battle’s murder, executing Burton doesn’t seem just.

“Mr. Burton was not the man who pulled the trigger,” Cottongim wrote. “It just seems wrong that he should be put to death when the shooter was resentenced to life… Our original sentence of death is just no longer appropriate given the circumstances.”

Burton has apologized to the Battle family.

“I sincerely apologize for participating in the robbery that led to Mr. Battle’s murder,” he wrote in a letter to Battle’s loved ones. “ I wish there was more that I could do, but I do hope you can maybe find some comfort in this apology.”

Doug Battle’s daughter Tori opposes Burton’s execution. She wrote a letter to Ivey advocating on behalf of the man condemned to die for her father’s murder.

“I do not see how this execution will contribute to my healing,” Tori Battle wrote in part. “My father, Doug Battle, was many things. He was strong, but he valued peace. He did not believe in revenge. And in that way, I am very much his daughter… I hope you will consider extending grace to Mr. Burton and granting him clemency.”

Life and Death in Dixie

If Burton’s execution were to move forward, Ivey, a Republican, will have presided over the execution of 26 people during her 9 years as governor, the most of any state executive since the death penalty was reinstated nationally in 1976.

Ivey presided over a three-month execution moratorium in the state following correctional staff’s repeated failure to execute condemned men by lethal injection. Following the end of that moratorium, Alabama became the first state in the U.S.—and the first government anywhere—to put a condemned man to death using nitrogen suffocation.

Clemency is rare in Alabama, a deep red state where a “tough on crime” stance is often seen as a political necessity.

But in March 2025, Ivey became the first governor this century to grant relief to a resident of death row when she commuted Rocky Myers’ capital sentence to life in prison. Ivey said the decision was “one of the most difficult decisions I’ve had to make as governor.”

Schulz, one of Burton’s attorneys who’s known him for 17 years, understands that obtaining clemency from any Alabama governor is a long shot, but he said the pardon power exists precisely for cases like this.

“This outlier case is a quintessential case for the exercise of executive clemency,” Schulz and Burton’s legal team wrote in their appeal to Ivey. “It is one which, similarly to a handful of cases from other states, slipped through the cracks.”

The case represents a “cascade of failures,” both legal and moral, Schulz said, and deserves intervention from the governor.

A Wardrobe and a Wish

Burton was raised in Montgomery in the shadow of Jim Crow. Throughout his childhood, Burton suffered abuse at the hands of his father. By age 14, he had already run away from home multiple times to avoid abuse.

Ellison, who lived with Burton’s biological mother and her father, recalled how as a child, Burton had showed up at the home and asked his siblings to hide him.

“His daddy had beat him so bad,” she recalled.

Ellison helped the boy into the bottom of a wardrobe, where he stayed for three days. Only when pushed by their parents did the other children finally reveal Burton’s hiding place. As the adults pulled him from the wardrobe, Ellison put her head down and avoided her brother’s eyes. She worried what would come next.

“That was the first time in my life and the only time in my life when I couldn’t look him in his face,” she said. “Because we had let him down. And whatever happened was going to be our fault.”

Burton begged to stay.

“I want you to be my daddy,” he told his stepfather.

Ellison said she feels that was the beginning of the end for Burton—an inflection point after which nothing would be the same.

Before long, she said, her brother would begin making decisions that would ultimately lead him to that Talladega AutoZone in 1991.

What happened that day, Ellison said, was the culmination of many bad choices by Burton, though none of them should cost him his life.

A Lesson in Mercy

Burton and his family know about mercy. After he was incarcerated, Burton’s first wife was murdered alongside her partner. Eventually, Burton would forgive the killer and urge his family to do the same.

“My father asked me to forgive,” Burton’s son, Charles III, said. “My father has gotten very wise in his years.”

His wife’s murderer, Larry Green, would eventually be sentenced to life in prison, not the death penalty, for the double homicide—an irony not lost on Burton’s family.

“You ain’t even killed nobody,” Carolyn Shavers, Burton’s daughter, told him on a recent call. Shavers found her mother’s body after the murder. “But that man killed my mama.”

Thursday’s screening at the Capri was an opportunity, the family said, to show the world what they already know: Sonny Burton is a light, they said. A light that deserves to keep on shining.

The men on Alabama’s death row already know that. Burton has become like the community grandpa at Holman prison, according to Nancy Palombi, a paralegal and investigator who’s known him for two decades.

When Burton was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, doctors told him he would likely lose his ability to walk. The men on the row weren’t having it, according to Palombi. One man in particular, Carey Grayson, told Burton to hold onto hope. Grayson reached out to Schulz and asked that he send in physical therapy materials so that he could help Burton find some relief.

It’s those simple gestures that show what Burton means to the men, many of whom have now lived with Burton for more than 30 years.

The State of Alabama executed Carey Grayson in 2024.

Ultimately, Burton’s family, many of his jurors, and Tori Battle, who lost her father, believe that granting Sonny Burton clemency is simply about doing the right thing.

“My daddy, who never killed anyone, is on death row,” Shavers wrote in a letter to the governor. “Please don’t let them execute him. He is my whole heart.”

“My dad…has paid the price for the crime he committed—robbery,” Ann Bradford-Harris wrote. “Please do not take my father’s life for the choice the Mr. DeBruce made.”

“I am a better man because of the way my father has guided me in the last 34 years since his sentence,” Charles Burton III wrote. “I ask you to spare his life… I love my father, and I just want him around.”

Toward the end of Thursday’s gathering, Schulz read a statement from Tori Battle, who couldn’t make it to the event.

“I wish I was there,” Battle wrote.

Tears filled Ellison’s eyes.

“This is a special moment for not only his family but for me, too, as the victim’s daughter,” the statement continued. “I want to extend my prayers to him and his family as they go through this process… I have voiced my opinion to Governor Ivey. I hope and pray she does the right thing and does not allow this execution to go forward.”

UPDATE: On Thursday, Feb. 5, Gov. Ivey set a timeframe for Burton’s execution beginning Thursday, March 12. Ivey’s office did not immediately respond to questions about whether the governor has reviewed Burton’s clemency materials.

Matt Schulz issued the following statement following the governor’s announcement: “We are very disappointed that Governor Ivey has opted to set an execution date for Mr. Burton. But we hope and pray that she, like Oklahoma Governor Stitt did in November, still changes her mind and stops this unjust execution of a man who has never taken a life. The State itself has admitted publicly that to execute Mr. Burton, after the State resentenced the shooter to life without parole, is ‘arguably unjust.’ No State should carry out an execution when the State itself hesitates at the justice of the penalty.”

Because of a failure by the nation’s highest court to enforce the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, the experiment continues.

That was the conclusion of three U.S. Supreme Court justices—Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson—who wrote a stinging dissent Thursday explaining why they would have allowed Anthony Boyd, a condemned Alabama man, a stay of execution to challenge the method the state would use to kill him: suffocation through the use of a nitrogen gas mask.

“Allowing the nitrogen hypoxia experiment to continue despite mounting and unbroken evidence that it violates the Constitution by inflicting unnecessary suffering fails to ‘protec[t] [the] dignity’ of ‘the Nation we have been, the Nation we are, and the Nation we aspire to be,’” the Court’s minority wrote. “Seven people have already been subjected to this cruel form of execution. The Court should not allow Boyd to become the eighth.”

A majority of the Supreme Court, who chose not to provide reasons for their decision, disagreed.

So in Alabama, among the lonely southern pines and freshly baled cotton, the dissent fell on deaf ears. Alabama prison officials showed the world “the Nation we are.” Boyd became the eighth.

Thursday evening, Alabama executed Anthony “Ant” Boyd, who maintained his innocence, by nitrogen suffocation.

The court’s dissenting justices had speculated that Boyd would be deprived of oxygen while conscious for two to four minutes before gasping for air, thrashing against his restraints, and being subjected to “psychological torment” until he was declared dead around twenty minutes later.

A little over an hour after their opinion was issued, Alabama began conducting what would become the longest nitrogen suffocation execution in the method’s history, exceeding even the worst expectations of the court’s minority.

At 5:50, correctional officers clad in blue, their name tags removed, opened the curtains of the death chamber to begin the state’s grim orchestration. Before those curtains would close about 37 minutes later, Boyd would gasp for air inside the gas mask more than 225 times.

When the curtains opened, Boyd gestured toward his brother, sitting just on the other side of the witness glass wearing a black tee shirt featuring Bible verses including Psalm 23, “The Lord is my Shepherd.”

The prison’s warden, Terry Raybon, read Boyd’s death warrant and asked if he had any last words.

Boyd, strapped to a gurney with a transparent gas mask attached to his face, spoke out for the last time.

“I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t participate in killing anybody,” he said. “There is no justice in this state. It’s all political. It’s revenge motivated. It’s not about closure, because closure comes from within, not with an execution. There will be no justice in this state until we change this system. I want all my people to keep fighting. Let’s get it.”

About 5:54, the warden exited the small, austere death chamber, its bare fluorescent lights illuminating Boyd’s Black body, wrapped in a white cotton sheet, below.

At 5:55, a guard appeared to check for leaks in the gas mask’s seal.

Just after, another guard’s radio squawked and the process lurched forward.

Rev. Jeff Hood, Boyd’s spiritual advisor, stepped toward Boyd from the corner of the chamber just a few feet away and held the condemned man’s hand.

Hood, a slim, bald, bearded man wearing glasses and a suit over his religious frock, drew the sign of the cross in the air above Boyd.

Around that time, Hood began to move back toward the wall but stopped. He appeared surprised and moved back toward Boyd. One journalist stood up to attempt to see around Hood, who was now standing between Boyd and the witness glass.

“Ma’am, we need you to have a seat,” a guard said.

She complied, a “stay seated and quiet” sign—a car tag from the prison’s license plate facility—mounted in the concrete wall above her head.

Hood opened his Bible at Boyd’s side and appeared to begin reading aloud.

Around 5:57, as Hood continued to read, Boyd began to violently react, thrashing against his restraints. His eyes rolled back, leaving only their whites, the color of the sheet. Boyd continued to convulse for at least a minute, shaking back and forth and lifting his legs from the gurney.

By 6:00, Boyd’s movement had slowed. Hood signed the cross once again.

Around 6:01, Hood moved back toward the wall and a prison guard leaned down over Boyd for several seconds. Boyd was still visibly moving during what may have been a consciousness check.

Around that time, Boyd began a series of deep, agonized breaths that lasted for more than 15 minutes, each break shuddering Boyd’s restrained head and neck.

One gasp after another. Minute after minute. You could hear reporters begin marking the breaths in their notes, the pencil scribbles audible in the air.

Gasp. Scribble. Gasp. Scribble.

After about 75 gasps, Boyd’s brother sighed deeply.

Then he broke the silence in the witness room, disobeying the crude directive posted overhead.

“It’s like he’s gasping for air,” Boyd’s brother said, shaking his head.

The gasping continued for another nearly 10 minutes, breath after breath after breath.

6:09. 6:10. 6:11. A small digital clock on the wall above Boyd counts the seconds.

By 6:12, Boyd’s gasps and become more shallow but increased in pace. Around 6:15, he exhaled and his head tilted to the side, away from media witnesses.

At 6:16, Boyd drew another deep breath. Hood once again signed the cross.

Beginning around 6:17, Boyd’s movement was limited. There appeared to be no movement after around 6:20.

Then, minute after minute, the witnesses watched as Boyd lay on the gurney motionless. Boyd’s brother put his head in his hands.

Around 6:27, the correctional officers, expressionless, closed the brown-blue curtains. The state’s performance was over.

Minutes later, a prison spokeswoman said Boyd’s official time of death was 6:33 p.m.

After the execution, Alabama’s prisons commissioner John Hamm said that while the execution was slightly longer than previous ones, the procedure went as planned.

“It was within the protocol, but it has been the longest,” Hamm said.

Hamm could not confirm the length of time nitrogen was flowing into the mask strapped to Boyd’s head.

Moments after Hamm’s remarks, Hood, the spiritual adviser, told members of the press that he believes Boyd’s nitrogen execution was “the worst yet” using the method.

He believes that Boyd was conscious and being tortured for about 16 minutes, a delay he said may have been caused by a faulty seal on the gas mask.

“I don’t think the mask was on correctly,” Hood said minutes after the execution. “There was a gap in the lip of the nitrogen mask that wasn’t there in before in previous executions,” Hood said.

Hood said that during the execution, he was directed by a correctional officer to remain standing by Boyd as the execution proceeded, something that he said was different from previous executions.

“I think it’s possible I was used to block y’all’s view,” Hood told media.

Ultimately, Hood said Boyd’s execution confirms Alabama is unable to safely or constitutionally carry out nitrogen gas executions.

“Alabama is absolutely incompetent,” he said.

Death of a Chairman

Boyd was a leader on death row, mentoring other incarcerated men and guiding Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty, a death-row led nonprofit, as its chairman.

His final message in its newsletter, On Wings of Hope, was one of resilience.

“Society has deemed itself better than death row inmates but Society is not acting better than death row inmates,” he wrote in part. “We are not outnumbered. We are not organized. Keep fighting and keep Hope alive.”

For those on living on Holman’s death row, it’s hard to feel like Boyd’s execution isn’t the death of Hope.

Still, they rise.

“The fight continues in your name amongst many,” his brothers on death row wrote just before his death, in a tribute published by Tread. “Do we still have the heart to go on? Yes, plenty! I know what change is, because i saw it in you. Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty—we still got work to do.”

Boyd’s execution by nitrogen gas is one of only a handful that have ever been carried out in the United States, primarily in Alabama, which first used the novel method in 2024 when state correctional officials suffocated Kenneth Smith.

The method has been controversial from its inception. Eyewitness accounts, including on Tread, have described violent, protracted executions that have contradicted state accounts and narratives in court filings, which have referred to the executions as “textbook.”

In its dissent’s opening, three of the nation’s top judges asked Americans to get our their phones, start a timer, and just sit for a few minutes.

“Now imagine for that entire time, you are suffocating,” the justices wrote. “You want to breathe; you have to breathe. But you are strapped to a gurney with a mask on your face pumping your lungs with nitrogen gas. Your mind knows that the gas will kill you. But your body keeps telling you to breathe. That is what awaits Anthony Boyd tonight.”

That process, they wrote, amounts to “psychological torment” and is forbidden by the Constitution.

On Thursday night, Alabama exceeded the minority’s grimmest predictions.

Alabama’s nitrogen gas experimentation is not expected to slow. State officials have already begun seeking death dates for additional men on the row.

Anthony “Ant” Boyd has long exemplified hope in the house of death.

For years now, Boyd has served as the head of Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty, the nation’s only death row nonprofit led by men on the inside. In that role, Boyd has earned the respect of his peers, becoming a consistent mentor and guide in an unstable and inhospitable environment, Holman Correctional Facility, a rural facility located among south Alabama’s towering pines.

A “revolutionary leader,” according to one of his friends on the row, Boyd has long spoken out where others may have hesitated.

He’s maintained his innocence. He’s criticized the criminal justice system in the U.S. generally and the death penalty specifically. He’s been a resource for others living on the row.

Now, as Boyd wrote in what may be his final letter to the readers of Project Hope’s newsletter, he’s in a last minute fight for his life, and it’s hard to be optimistic.

“I would love to tell all of you that I believe truth, justicе, and human dignity will prevail,” he wrote. “But we’re in Alabama where such things are few and far between.”

But Boyd’s not one to give up.

Instead, he’s still in the midst of a legal battle attempting to halt his execution, including a challenge to the use of nitrogen suffocation, a method employed for the first time by Alabama officials—the first in the nation to do so— in January 2024 to kill Kenneth Smith.

So far, courts have rejected that claim. That’s unlikely to come as a surprise to Boyd. Through his writings for Project Hope, he’s long expressed his view that the method (and capital punishment generally) is unethical and unconstitutional, and that the courts have been unwise in their unwillingness to rule it as such.

“The state of Alabama, prior to starting its experimentations in human guinea pigs, told the courts and the world that the gas would render unconscious in a matter of seconds, resulting in death in a matter of minutes…which has proven to be lies,” Boyd wrote of the nitrogen suffocation.

The state’s novel method of execution deprives the condemned individual of oxygen through the use of a gas mask strapped on his or her face, though state officials have not released the unredacted protocol for the process.

During the first ever nitrogen execution in the U.S., Alabama correctional officers and witnesses watched on as Kenny Smith, who’d survived an earlier lethal injection, jerked violently back and forth on the death chamber’s gurney. Afterward, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, who has never witnessed an execution, called Smith’s suffocation “textbook.”

“They don’t even know when the test subjects go unconscious, nor do they know when they actually die,” Boyd wrote of the method in his latest letter. “Still, the courts allow this farce of justice to continue.”

Boyd’s strong views on the law and justice aren’t new.

A few years ago, Boyd sent UNA professor and death penalty archivist Katie Owens-Murphy a letter sharing a series of posters produced by men on the row highlighting, through vivid drawings and visualizations, the connections between slavery, mass incarceration and the death penalty.

“The gist of the whole thing is to show how the system went from slavery to criminal and is still robbing innocent men, women, and children of their dignity and freedom,” he wrote.

In his latest letter, he called state executions “barbaric experiments being conducted in their houses of death.”

Over time, Boyd’s writings reflect years of his life in Holman, better and worse, ups and downs, ins and outs.

Sometimes, Boyd’s writings were almost celebratory.

In a previous holiday issue of On Wings of Hope, Boyd wrote of a new “Sunshine” in his life.

“Things have only continued to get better, as my holidays came early,” he wrote. “Yes, I’m feeling quite festive again (Smile). I guess a certain four letter word can make you feel that way (Wink).”

Other times, Boyd is more reflective, literally.

“We stand in front of a mirror, and more than our reflections are exposed,” Boyd once wrote. “Maybe I could hide that wrinkle, that blemish or that scar… What if we stopped looking in the mirror for superficial things and started to take good, hard looks at ourselves for the people we truly are?”

In the end, he wrote, we’d all be better for it.

“The world would be a better place if we all started to look for things like forgiveness and understanding in those mirrors we know as our hearts,” he wrote. “That’s where the true reflection of who we are lies.”

The men of Alabama’s death row—Ant Boyd’s brothers—have found it hard to come to terms with the impending execution of their chairman, a man they’ve looked to for stability and guidance.

In his final week, they wrote the following, called “The Real Ant Man,” as a tribute for Boyd.

Will I Shed A Tear?

No, 
Because the tears
are shredding me,
Cutting paths through the visions
I had of you reuniting with your family,
teaching and guiding them, 
as you did your fraternity
of brothers you helped change,
showing us the goal from long range, 
and each step taken towards it 
brought it closer because you remained
true to your purpose
a truth that couldn’t be contained
Using your life to fight for life
continuing to step even when drained
laughing and smiling
when you had every excuse to go insane
giving claps and hugs
in the midst of this spirit breaking terrain, 
You are my big brother
in so many ways
You are your big brother
in so many ways
We had some waves, 
close shaves
joys
pains
all while trying to save
lives
The fight continues 
in your name amongst many
Do we still have the heart to go on?
Yes, plenty!
I know what change is,
because i saw it in you
Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty,
we still got work to do
So in the inspiring words of Anthony Boyd,
Let’s get it!!!

With love, 
Your brothers

In his latest letter, Boyd nodded to the power of solidarity, something he’s been building on death row for decades.

“Society has deemed itself better than death row inmates but Society is not acting better than death row inmates,” he wrote in part. “We are not outnumbered. We are not organized. Keep fighting and keep Hope alive.”

UPDATE: Ant Boyd was killed Thursday, October 23, in the longest nitrogen execution in history. You can read Tread’s eyewitness account below.

On Thursday evening, under a crimson red Atmore sky, Alabama executed Geoffrey Todd West over the objections of his victim’s family.

Just two days before West’s nitrogen suffocation at the state’s hands, Will Berry, son of Margaret Parrish Berry, had pleaded with Alabama’s governor to spare his life. He also had another request—that state officials allow him to deliver a message of forgiveness to West face-to-face.

“I love you,” he wanted to tell West. “God loves you. My mother would love you, because we forgive you.”

Gov. Kay Ivey, who has now presided over two dozen executions, denied that request.

In a statement sent to media following West’s nitrogen gas execution, Attorney General Steve Marshall cited “the dignity of every victim” in his defense of the state-sanctioned killing.

“Margaret did not have to senselessly die,” Marshall wrote. “As a country, we must stand firmly in our beliefs between right and wrong, justice and forgiveness. Alabama is steadfast in our commitment to holding the guilty accountable because that is what honors the dignity of every victim. Justice is how we restore peace to the communities they leave behind.”

Berry, who was 11 at the time of his mother’s death, said prosecutors pressured him as a child to support the death penalty in West’s case. Now, nearly three decades later, Berry has been steadfast in his view: his mother wouldn’t have wanted West to be killed in her name.

Sparing West, he said, would honor his mother’s dignity, not putting him to death.

“The state shouldn’t take a man’s life,” Berry told Tread News. “I know my mother and what she would want. She wouldn’t want this.”

Last week, West told Tread News he wanted to be remembered for love, not hate.

“I love the Lord. I love my family. And I love the Crimson Tide,” West said.

Following West’s execution, Berry said he was “stunned” the state would proceed against the wishes of his family.

“Please convey our condolences to his mother and the rest of his family,” Berry said. “From what we understand, he acted out of character that night. People he grew up with said he was a good person who got off track. We pray that he gains peace when he meets his maker.”

Berry said he plans to send West’s mother flowers.

On death row, as prison guards escorted West to the execution chamber Thursday evening, the 151 other men Alabama has condemned to die banged on their cell doors in solidarity, as is their custom, letting West know he did not walk alone.

“We beat on the doors for a lot longer than normal,” one of the men told Tread News. “That just lets you know how much we cared for him.”

Earlier in the day, the rain held off just long enough for the men to hold a vigil in Holman’s yard for West, another custom. It began with a rendition of “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,” according to an attendee.

“And that’s what we’ll continue to do.”

In his final statement, West apologized for his actions once again, something he and Berry wished he could’ve done in person:

"I am sorry. 

I have apologized privately to the family of Margaret Parrish Berry, and am humbled by the forgiveness her son, Will, has extended.

I was baptized into the Catholic Church earlier this year and confirmed yesterday.  I am at peace because I know where I am going and look forward to seeing Mrs. Berry when I get there.

I urge everyone, especially young people, to find God. Spend a few moments to consider the two possibilities: this was all a fluke or there is a Creator and a reason for everything. Your choice will determine where you spend eternity.

God bless you all."

Not long after they’d finished their show of solidarity, the men of Alabama’s death row watched from their cell windows as the body of their friend was taken out of Holman prison—and beyond its guarded gates—for the last time.

Geoffrey Todd West will be buried with the message of forgiveness sent to him by Will Berry, according to his lawyers.

Berry hopes that message gave West some comfort in the moments before his death.

What West didn’t receive on earth, Berry said—compassion, mercy, and forgiveness—“he’ll receive in heaven.”

“In Jesus name I pray,” he said. “Amen.”

You can read more about Will Berry and Geoffrey West below.

Tuesday in Montgomery, Will Berry said he’d come to the state’s capital “to do the right thing.” It’s what he said his mother, Margaret Parrish Berry, would’ve wanted.

Days earlier, he’d told Tread News that he wanted to meet face-to-face with Geoffrey West, the man convicted of taking his mother’s life in a 1997 gas station robbery. He had a message for him.

“I love you,” he wanted to tell West. “God loves you. My mother would love you, because we forgive you.”

The State of Alabama denied that request, informing Berry he wouldn’t be allowed to visit West, though he’d be allowed to view the man’s execution by nitrogen suffocation if he wished.

On Tuesday, Berry made the drive to the Alabama State Capitol to visit the office of Gov. Kay Ivey and deliver a petition asking for the state to spare West’s life. He also wanted to request—one last time—that he be allowed to meet with the condemned man ahead of his scheduled execution on Thursday.

As the Montgomery sun beat down on Berry and his wife Courtney, they made their way up the marble stairs of the capitol, past the statue of Jefferson Davis and into the ornate building—the seat of Alabama’s government.

Soon, they arrived at the reception desk of the governor’s office, where a staffer with constituent services was sent to meet them.

“This is on behalf of Geoffrey Todd West,” Berry told the woman, handing over the petition. “We have forgiven this man, and we want to move forward without his death. There’s enough death. We don’t want no more mourning—my family or his family.”

Berry said he wants healing, not revenge in his mother’s name.

“I want a relationship with this man,” he told the governor’s staffer, and it can’t happen if he dies. It can’t. And I think it’s wrong that y’all—the State of Alabama—would let me go see the man die but won’t let me see him—visit him, hug his neck, and tell him I love him and forgive him to his face.”

His mother wouldn’t have wanted West executed, Berry told the staffer.

“He’s a child of God…” he said. “It shouldn’t be on the state to forgive. It should be on us. It’s a commandment. Vengeance is the Lord’s, not the State of Alabama.”

The governor’s staffer said she would pass the message along to Ivey, who has now presided over 23 executions, including the first-ever nitrogen suffocation in the United States.

West told Tread News last week that he also wants to meet with Berry before Alabama puts him to death.

“I’m sorry,” West wants to tell him. “I’d like to ask for his forgiveness, and I’d like to tell him the truth. I’d like to answer any questions he has.”

Berry said that despite the state’s offer, he doesn’t plan to watch West suffocate to death inside Holman prison on Thursday, should the execution proceed. West’s death will compound the trauma caused by his mother’s murder, not lessen it.

“We should be healing,” Berry said. “I don’t want this man to die.”

You can read more about Will Berry and Geoffrey West at the link below.

Will Berry has a message for Geoffrey West, the man convicted of murdering his mother Margaret when Berry was only 11 years old.

He wants to deliver it in person.

On Thursday, just a week before the State of Alabama is scheduled to suffocate West using nitrogen gas, Berry told Tread what that simple message would be.

“I love you,” he wants to tell West. “God loves you. My mother would love you, because we forgive you.”

He won’t get to deliver that message face-to-face. This week, in an email, a lawyer for the Alabama Department of Corrections notified West’s attorneys that they’ve denied Berry’s request to meet with West.

“As victims of Mr. West’s crime, Mr. and Mrs. Berry are not permitted to visit with Mr. West,” the email said.

West wants to meet Berry, too. He told Tread on Wednesday exactly what he’d like to look in his eyes and say.

“I’m sorry,” West wants to tell him. “I’d like to ask for his forgiveness, and I’d like to tell him the truth. I’d like to answer any questions he has.”

He won’t get the chance.

The only right that Will Berry has leading up to the scheduled execution of Geoffrey West is to witness his death inside Holman prison. The State of Alabama will let Berry watch West die. They won’t let him watch West live.

Whether Berry visits West in the days before he’s put to death should be up to the two of them, not the State of Alabama, he said. Preventing the meeting is justice denied.

“It’s not their forgiveness that’s important: it’s ours,” he said. “If he agrees and I agree, why wouldn’t that be okay? If they’ll let me see him executed, why wouldn’t they let me meet him face-to-face?”

Berry doesn’t plan to watch staffers for the Alabama Department of Corrections kill West. He doesn’t believe Alabama should execute him at all.

“The State shouldn’t take a man’s life,” he told Tread. “I know my mother and what she would want. She wouldn’t want this.”

Berry said he still slept with his mother every night until her death.

“I was her baby,” he said.

On weekends, Margaret Berry often took her son along to her job at an Attalla gas station. The night of her murder, when West shot and killed her during the course of a robbery, she’d left her 11-year-old son at home because of a fever blister that had been bothering him. Margaret had told her son to call her at the store if he needed anything. He woke up in the night and dialed the familiar number.

There was no answer. His mother was dead.

What happened that night changed the course of Berry’s life. After her murder, he was largely on his own.

In the following years, as West’s trial progressed, the trauma continued. Berry said he remembers the district attorney in the case pressing him to support the death penalty.

“I was 13 when the DA got in my face and pushed the death penalty,” he said.

In that moment, the state needed Will Berry to advance its agenda. In the decades that followed, Berry said, the state was nowhere to be found.

“My whole life, I’ve never had no resources to help me,” Berry said. “And let me tell you, it’s been hard for me.”

Berry wants his mother to be remembered for the person she was—a loving and forgiving follower of Christ—not as the reason for the State of Alabama to seek revenge in her name.

“She loved unconditionally, and she taught me to do what is right,” he said. “Forgiveness is what she was.”

Ultimately, Berry said he simply wants to sit together, hand-in-hand with West and pray with him. Short of that, he wants West to know that he did everything in his power to save his life.

In the days leading up to his execution, West said his thoughts are with Berry and with his own mother, who may soon be forced to deal with her son’s execution.

“She doesn’t want to see me killed,” he said, his voice trailing. “But it’s out of our control. We’ll just have to get through it.”

Those living on Holman’s death row with West have helped him do just that. Each day, West said, at least one person has spoken with him through the door of his isolation cell, making sure he’s okay. Their solidarity means the world, West said.

Music has been another comfort for West. He says his favorite song is “A Pirate Looks At Forty,” a song by Jimmy Buffett, an Alabama native.

I've done a bit of smugglin'
And I've run my share of grass
I made enough money to buy Miami but I pissed it away so fast
Never meant to last, never meant to last

And I have been drunk now for over two weeks
I passed out and I rallied and I sprung a few leaks
But I got to stop wishin', got to go fishin'
Down to rock bottom again

If the state succeeds in its attempt to take his life, West said he wants to be remembered for who he’s become, not just for a tragic mistake he made 28 years ago. He wants to be remembered for love, not hate.

“I love the Lord. I love my family. And I love the Crimson Tide,” West said.

For Berry, the Crimson Tide means something darker. It’s the ongoing trail of blood that’s followed him now for three decades. Killing West will only be another wound he’ll have to try and heal.

“I’m going to protest it,” Berry said. “But thinking that it may still happen, it makes me sick at my stomach.”

If West is suffocated by the state, Berry said he’ll send West’s mother flowers. It’s the least he could do, he told Tread.

West has relied on his faith to keep his spirits up as his scheduled execution by nitrogen suffocation approaches. A recent convert from Baptism to Catholicism, West said he knows there’s more for him beyond this life.

Will Berry agrees.

“I hope the Lord blesses Geoff on this earth,” Berry said. “But what he don’t receive here, he’ll receive in heaven.”

He paused for a moment.

“In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.”

There were no protestors today on the side of Highway 21 in Atmore, Alabama, outside Holman Correctional Facility where the state would soon begin its execution of James Osgood.

Instead, under a cloudy spring sky, a few guard trucks were parked at the prison’s first gate, lonely in the grassy plains.

Before, at the state’s previous killings, protestors have often flanked the roadside nearest those trucks, their dissenting bodies one of the few signals in the landscape of the death about to occur inside the prison’s gates.

But this time, at the request of Osgood, there were to be no protests. No protestors. No rallies calling for mercy. No attempts to save his life, however futile in this Deep South state.

Inside the prison, those Alabamians incarcerated on death row were already on lockdown in preparation for the lethal injection of their friend.

Osgood had given one of them some of his essentials—clothes, food and some hygiene products—and told him that he trusted the man to distribute them fairly to others in Holman after he was gone.

“I was honored,” the man told Tread.

Those men, the more than 150 of them housed on the row, had vigils Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning, he said, before lockdown began. The vigils were “focused on the individual relationship with God, grace, forgiveness—and solidarity.”

“Beautiful and inspiring words were spoken, and since there is no attempts at stopping the execution, the focus was on the strength and healing we all rely on to get us through,” he said.

Osgood was convicted more than a decade ago of the 2010 murder of Tracy Lynn Brown, a Chilton County woman. His initial death sentence was overturned because an error in the instructions given to the jury limited their ability to consider mitigating evidence, including a significant and documented history of Osgood’s abuse as a child, in their consideration of whether the state should put the man to death.

Osgood was deep into research of his family tree, one of the men on the row told Tread in the days before Thursday evening’s execution.

“Osgood is an interesting guy,” he said in part. “He and a group of friends started a Dungeons and Dragons game [in Holman].”

Those around him said Osgood felt deeply guilty, to the point that he believed his death is required to make up for what he did.

Osgood dropped his appeals in recent years and asked a judge to allow him to die.

“I can't judge him for making the decision he made,” the man on death row told Tread. “It's his life, and from what I can tell it's always been a rough one.”

Asked about how those living on the row are processing Osgood’s request to die, the man on death row said many of them are focusing on forgiveness.

“Most guys here struggle with forgiving themselves, and I have as well,” he said. “But we forgive people for them and for us, and when we forgive ourselves, it's going to benefit everyone. We walk free from the guilt and shame and can care for others better, not held back by our past, but looking forward with a hope, not just for us, but all who we can encourage and uplift.”

Osgood’s execution “will likely not make many waves,” he said, and is unlikely to change public opinion about the death penalty in Alabama, “but it’s always sad to have guys lose hope.”

Osgood isn’t the first person in recent Alabama history to volunteer for execution. Derrick Dearman, convicted of a 2016 murder, had similarly dropped his appeals ahead of his execution.

Some state officials have applauded condemned individuals’ decisions to volunteer for executions. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said that Dearman’s decision to drop his appeals “was appropriate.”

The individual on the row interviewed by Tread said that he worries about the influence Dearman’s desire to have the state kill him had on other incarcerated men’s mental health.

“Suicide is contagious, and Dearman influenced Osgood,” he said.

Equal Justice Initiative, a Montgomery nonprofit, recently outlined how Osgood’s past may have also contributed to suicidal tendencies later in life.

“DHR records document the abandonment, neglect, and abuse he endured from birth until he was discharged from the system at 17. His adoptive mother took James and his sister to bars and left them alone with strangers, resulting in James being sexually abused and witnessing the sexual abuse of his sister. James had to save his sister when their adoptive mother tried to drown her in the bathtub,” according to EJI.

“In part because of this childhood trauma, James has struggled with suicidal tendencies. At about 12, DHR documented James as ‘depressed and distraught.’ In 1985, at about 17, he sent his caseworker a letter that ‘indicated suicidal tendencies.’ James attempted suicide in 1997,” the legal nonprofit wrote of Osgood.

The Death Penalty Information center published an analysis earlier this year that concluded that of the 165 peo­ple exe­cut­ed at their own request since 1977, 87% bat­tled men­tal ill­ness, sub­stance abuse, or both.

The man on Alabama’s death row who spoke with Tread confirmed some of those dynamics.

“There's a couple of other guys who see death as an escape, so I'm praying—and trying to be a good friend—for those guys,” he said.

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STAY SEATED AND QUIET: An eyewitness account of the execution of James Osgood

The curtain, as usual, was closed when the five media witnesses entered one of three viewing rooms just outside Holman’s death chamber. Above the window, a familiar reminder in all caps, stamped onto a license plate by a person incarcerated at the rural Alabama institution: “STAY SEATED AND QUIET.”

As the press entered, witnesses for the condemned—family members and a lawyer—shuffled seats, moving toward the front of the room. Soon, all of the witnesses were seated in the padded office chairs pointed toward the viewing glass, reflecting the pained expressions of Osgood’s witnesses back to the rest of the room.

“Raisin’ Hell,” one of their shirts said.

The woman’s face was scrunched—pained—her eyes closed as she took slow, deep intentional breaths, preparing herself for the curtain to open.

Soon, around 6:09, correctional officers pulled back the light blue curtains of the state’s grim stage, revealing Osgood laid on his back, straps over his body, arms out in crucifix, an IV entering the inside of his left elbow. The arm was red and appeared bruised, a speck of blood visible even from the witness room’s back row.

Later, following the execution, Alabama’s prisons commissioner would confirm that the state’s execution team had stuck Osgood five times—four times in one arm and once in the other—before gaining vein access. The commissioner blamed “vein damage” as the reason multiple sticks had been required, though he did not specify how the damage had occurred.

Within a few moments, Holman’s warden took the mic and began the process of reading Osgood’s death warrant.

“Signed by Governor Kay Ivey,” he finished. Then, quickly: “Do you have any last words?”

The warden pushed the microphone into Osgood’s face. Osgood took a moment, and the warden began to pull away. But Osgood was ready. He looked at the warden and made it clear: he would speak.

“I have not said her name since that day,” he said of Tracy Brown, his victim. “I felt like it wasn’t my right to.”

But over time, he explained, he began to believe not saying her name was more disrespectful.

“Today will be the first day I say her name,” he said. “Tracy, I apologize.”

The warden took away the wired microphone, hanging it back in its place against the back wall, next to the IV lines routed from backstage. He left the room, leaving just the members of the execution team to do their deadly work.

As the execution procedure began around 6:12, Osgood began cycling through numbers with the fingers of his left hand. One finger, then four, then three. I. Love. You.

One of Osgood’s witnesses openly wailed.

He began to breath through his mouth, but he continued cycling through the numbers with his fingers. One, four, three. One, four, three.

By 6:14, it had already become more difficult for Osgood to continue the pattern. His breathing soon became more labored. His eyes remained open.

Osgood’s witnesses soon became concerned about one of their loved ones beside them in the front row of the witness room. Her sobs had become more quiet and her breathing labored, too.

“You’ve gotta breathe,” one of her loved ones told her. The lawyer, Alison Mollman, who represented Osgood for years, reached out her hand and placed it on the struggling relative’s back. She wouldn’t move it for the rest of the execution.

Around 6:15, Osgood head fell back and his labored breathing continued. His eyes remain at least partially open.

Within a few moments, a walkie talkie squeaked in the distance and one of the prison guards— a man who’d been uniformed in previous executions, but who now wore a suit—proceeded with a consciousness check.

“Inmate Osgood,” he yelled in the man’s face. “Inmate Osgood.”

The tail of the guard’s suit was stuck in his pants.

The guard pinched Osgood’s skin on the inside of his arm, not far from where the IV line entered his body.

By around 6:18, Osgood had stopped moving. One finger remained extended, his hand still trying to relay his message, even as he died. I. Love. You. The guards still flanked the man, their hands linked together in front of them, theirs eyes locked into the distance.

Then, for several minutes, as Osgood laid motionless on the gurney before us, the witnesses in the room sat silent and still, just as the license plate sign above us had demanded.

The curtain closed at 6:25 p.m.

Osgood was declared dead by a physician around 6:35, according to a corrections official.

“He made mistakes, terrible ones that he regretted until his dying day, but he didn’t make excuses for his actions,” Mollman said in a statment. “He was accountable and he was sincere.”

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The View from the Row

As the execution proceeded a stone’s throw away, the man living on the row was looking out his window, over the prison yard toward the door where he knew Osgood’s body would soon exit, barring another botched execution attempt by the State of Alabama. He’d seen it all before.

On Thursday evening, he saw it all again.

“Watching them load him into the coroner’s van now,” he told Tread, the familiar process beginning at the prison door below him. “I hope he’s received in heaven with a little more gentleness than he got from us, the system, society, and the coroner just now.”

He remembered how staff had had difficulty maneuvering the body of the person they’d just killed after they had executed Demetrius Frazier in February.

“Tonight it was just the slamming him around that I noticed,” he said.

In the end, the man said he feels guilty that he couldn’t do more to make Osgood feel like life was worth living, even in the confines of the state.

“I know there’s only so much I could do, but I definitely failed him and society failed him, and he failed himself,” he said. “It’s just sad that we can’t do better than that for each other.”

Atmore, Ala. — Steven Tiggleman said that at first, those around him tried to keep news of Alan Miller’s pending execution from him. They thought it may be too much.

Earlier this year, Tiggleman watched through a glass pane as his father, Kenneth Eugene Smith, became the first person ever suffocated using nitrogen in a government-sanctioned execution.

On Thursday, the State of Alabama moved to its second execution using the method, pioneering a new method of killing its condemned citizens in the wake of botched lethal injections that had thrown the state’s capital scheme into some doubt. For its second nitrogen execution, Alabama chose Alan Eugene Miller, a man who had, like Smith, survived the state’s first attempt to put him to death by lethal injection.

Smith told Tread in the hours before his execution that he felt Alabama was trying to kill the only survivors of its execution attempts - himself and Miller. On Thursday, Alabama accomplished that grim task.

Eventually, despite his loved ones’ efforts, Tiggleman heard of Miller’s impending execution. His heart sank. But he said he wasn’t surprised Alabama chose to continue its deathly experiments with nitrogen gas.

“You can’t execute someone the first way, then you move to a second way, and it’s also a failure,” Tiggleman said. “Nobody knows what they’re doing, but they’re doing it.”

Tiggleman said that having watched a nitrogen execution, he believes no one should be subjected to the method.

“Regardless of what he did, and what I seen my dad go through, I wouldn’t want nobody else to suffer like that,” he told Tread.

He said that he believes that Gov. Ivey, who was the first to announce Miller’s death, and Attorney General Steve Marshall, who sought his death warrant, should be required to attend executions in the state.

“They’re signing these documents, so they should have to be there,” he said. “It’s a humanity thing.”

Asked whether he believed watching a nitrogen execution would change their views about the practice, Tiggleman said he wasn’t sure.

“It depends on what was in their hearts,” he said. “There are some heartless people in this world.”

Deanna Smith, Kenneth Smith’s widow, told Tread that Thursday’s execution was another example of Alabama’s failed death penalty system.

“My heart and prayers go out to Mr. Miller’s family, friends, and loved ones who are hurting tonight,” Smith said. “I am saddened and disheartened that Alabama has chose to take Mr. Miller’s life in such a violent manner and has failed to hold Homan Correctional Facility accountable for the initial botched execution of Mr. Miller in 2022.”

Media witnesses of Miller’s execution described around two minutes of shaking against the gurney’s restraints followed by several minutes of gasping for air, a description similar to Tread’s account of Smith’s execution in January.

Tiggleman said that though he doesn’t know Miller or his history, he hopes people remember him for more than his crime. Kenneth Smith, he said, was much more than a condemned man. He was his father.

“He was an amazing father: the best he could,” Tiggleman said. “He helped me find religion and made me a better person. He was more than one incident. Just because you make one mistake or I make a mistake doesn't mean you’re a horrible person. We're all human.”

Tiggleman said that as the nation’s eyes are on Alabama in the wake of Miller’s execution, he hopes that people take a moment to love one another.

“Show compassion to your brothers and your sisters and your mother and your father and look after one another,” he said. “You never know what positive effect you might have on somebody.

He won’t be alone.

No one who’s walked the hallways of Holman prison toward Alabama’s death chamber ever has been.

Barring court action, Jamie Mills is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection this evening, Thursday, May 30.

Before he’s strapped to the Stryker gurney and prison staffers attempt to gain access to his veins, he’ll likely hear what many before him have — the sound of solidarity.

As Mills makes his way, shackled, through the prison’s hallways, he’ll hear it in the air. He may even feel the building shaking through the soles of his feet. His brothers, as many as 160 men who’ve been condemned by their own government to die, will beat the doors of their cells in a last attempt to let him know: they all stand together. They love together. They live and die together.

Early on in his time on the row, Kenny Smith — the first person to ever die by nitrogen suffocation execution — found solace in the decades-old tradition.

Time after time, as the state chose who would be next to die, the men would do their best to rally around their condemned brother, assuring him that even in his walk towards what could be his last moments on earth, they’d be there.

But over the years, Kenny said, the tradition wore on him.

In January 2024, as he prepared for his own death later that day, Kenny told me why. He said that as his years on death row passed, the sounds of solidarity made him aware that his own time was coming.

“It just became hard over time,” he told me.

Kenny said that once, he’d fallen asleep in his cell in the hours leading up to an execution. He awoke to the sound of the beating in a cold sweat.

“I thought it was time for my execution,” he said.

It would be many more years after that nightmare before the state would attempt to execute Smith. In November 2022, the state tried and failed to kill him by lethal injection, unable to access his veins despite repeated poking and prodding by prison staff.

After that attempt, Kenny would suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, forced to interact with the same prison guards that had attempted to kill him.

“Though mine is not post,” he wrote to me later. “It’s ongoing.”

A little over a year later, in January 2024, I watched on as Smith hugged and kissed his wife Deanna for the last time. After, his mother Linda walked him over to the guard that would bring him to his death, the first ever state-sponsored nitrogen gassing of a human being.

As he walked, he heard it — a heartbeat of hope. The banging of the doors. He walked alone, save for the prison guards at his sides. But his brothers were there, too, sharing the sound of solidarity.

Below is an exclusive audio clip of the men of Alabama’s death row rapping on their cell doors just before the nitrogen suffocation of Kenneth Eugene Smith on the evening of January 25.

ATMORE, Ala. — His wife wore a shirt that said “Never Alone.” 

It was one of the first things Kenneth Smith saw Thursday night when unnamed representatives of the State of Alabama pulled back the curtains of the execution chamber where he would soon die. 

“I will never leave you or forsake you,” her shirt reminded him. 

Hours before his death, as Kenny and his family sat around a visitation table inside Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama, Deanna Smith said she’d decided to wear the shirt at the last minute. But she’d worn it before. 

“It’s the same shirt I wore last time they tried to kill him,” she said, tears pouring down her face. “And I felt like he needed to see that message again.”

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In November 2022, Alabama prison officials had failed for hours to gain access to Smith’s veins in an attempt to end his life through lethal injection for his role in the murder of Elizabeth Sennett more than three decades prior. Around 11:21 p.m. that night, less than an hour before the expiration of Smith’s death warrant, members of the execution team abandoned their efforts, leaving Smith poked, prodded, and traumatized. 

A year later, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey announced the state would try to kill Smith again, this time using nitrogen suffocation, a method of execution never before used by a government to kill its citizens. Medical experts, religious leaders, and even the United Nations condemned the announcement. 

The news had sent Smith back to a hell he’d been trying to escape, he wrote to Tread News at the time.

“Hearing the news from the Alabama Supreme Court this week has sent me spiraling back into deep anxiety and depression,” Smith wrote. “Had I not survived last year, the psychological trauma that starts when you actually get your date and only builds up in intensity throughout the process would neither be here nor there...I'd be dead. But I am here, and that trauma visited upon me last year has remained with me, and I am starting this next round at this extreme high level of PTSD (though mine is not post, it is ongoing). It will only get worse. I'm not ready for this again…”

In the days and hours before Thursday’s execution, Smith spent time with his family and friends inside Holman. There, surrounded by chipping paint, molding bathrooms, and bright-colored urinal deodorizers hung on the walls as air fresheners, the condemned man’s family squeezed whatever life and love they could from the time he had left. 

At visitations, Smith appeared strong for his family, who often wept as he held them in his arms. 

“We got this,” he’d tell them, flashing a bright, white smile that lifted spirits despite the grim circumstances and bleak surroundings. 

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On Thursday morning, visitation began late after prison officials said Smith had been slow to wake up, though his wife had been on the phone with him since around 6 a.m. Soon, though, family members had gathered inside Holman and began by reading letters sent to Kenny from across the world. 

“In our chapel, we pray for you every day,” Cordia Klein wrote to Smith. She included a photo of the altar where she’d left a remembrance for the condemned man. “Your name is in Bethlehem.”

Later Thursday morning, Smith was brought his final meal – a T-bone steak, cheese-covered hashbrowns, and scrambled eggs – which he shared with his family and friends. 

“Let’s break bread together,” he told them, pushing the tray to the center of the white plastic table. 

Correctional officers reminded Smith that all food and drinks would need to leave the visitation area before 10 a.m. given concerns from medical experts that Smith could vomit inside the nitrogen mask, eventually choking to death. 

Smith and his family viewed the restriction as another way for the state to flex its power over them. 

The day before, it had been Deanna’s Bible, which prison officials interrupted visitation to confiscate. 

“You can’t have that in here,” the guard told her.

She’d been soft-spoken all morning, barely audible as she explained how she felt about the state’s planned attempt at her husband’s life. Now, her voice was firm and clear. 

“My Bible?” she asked. “I’ve brought it to every visit I’ve had. I brought it to every visit the last time you tried to kill him.”

The past didn’t matter. The guard took the Bible, left the visitation room, and locked the door behind her.

There was his friend’s untimely removal from Holman, too. Liz Bruenig, a reporter for The Atlantic magazine, was asked to leave the facility and banned from witnessing the execution over the use of a pen during visitation. 

“They should take that pen and shove it,” one of his family members said after learning of Bruenig’s removal. 

It wasn’t until late afternoon — around 2:45 — that Kenneth Smith’s upbeat veneer began to crack. 

Smith, a metallic cross hanging from his neck, broke down as his mother Linda, 78, began to cry. The rest of his family looked on, unable to provide any antidote for what would soon come. 

By 4 p.m., Kenneth Smith’s final visitation was coming to an end. His family and friends had formed a circle of chairs, holding each other’s hands. Smith walked from person to person, hugging each one and telling them what they meant to him. 

“This is my little girl,” he said of his mother toward the end of the visit’s end. “One of my first memories is us running through the woods away from my father. We should have never had to do that. But she’s always taken care of me.” 

Smith began to cry. 

His mother, 78, squeezed her son’s hand. 

“You were my pride and joy,” she said. As the tears fell, a smile crossed her face. “I love you.”

Before Smith left, everyone in the room stood, each person’s hand interlaced with the next. 

The condemned man began to pray. 

“We know you intervene when no one else can,” he prayed. 

Smith thanked God for those who supported him during his time on death row, a sentiment he would repeat in the execution chamber hours later. 

“In Jesus’ name we pray,” he said. “Amen.”

Smith hugged everyone again, and his mother held his hand and walked him over to the correctional officer waiting for him at the door. The officer cuffed Kenny, and a few moments later, his family and friends watched as he was marched down the hallway towards his own death. 

The other door to the visitation room quickly opened. 

“Let’s go, folks,” an officer said bluntly. 

Still, Deanna Smith looked back to get another glimpse at her husband. She signed “I love you.” It wouldn’t be the last time. 

A few hours later, a majority of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court denied Smith’s final appeal. 

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that Smith should not be forced to serve as Alabama’s latest guinea pig. 

“Twice now this Court has ignored Smith’s warning that Alabama will subject him to an unconstitutional risk of pain. The first time, Smith’s predictions came true. He “survived to describe the intense fear and pain [he] experienced during Alabama’s tortuous attempts to execute [him],” Sotomayor wrote. “This time, he predicts that Alabama’s protocol will cause him to suffocate and choke to death on his own vomit. I sincerely hope that he is not proven correct a second time. With deep sadness, but commitment to the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment, I respectfully dissent.”

Smith and his family wouldn’t get to read the court’s decision before the execution began.

Instead, Smith was soon moved to the execution chamber, where he was strapped to a Stryker gurney and fitted with a gas mask that covered his entire face, from forehead to chin. A brand name on the mask’s front was covered with black tape. 

Smith’s family was soon moved to a witness room adjoining the chamber. 

“STAY SEATED AND QUIET,” a car tag placed above the window onto the chamber demanded of witnesses. The witness room was lit by a dim, salmon colored light, with around a dozen chairs packed into a small, tiled space. A single box of tissues sat on the window sill. Members of the media soon filed in behind the family, taking their seats to observe what would be the nation’s first execution by nitrogen suffocation. 

Around 7:53, correctional officers opened the curtains to the execution chamber, revealing Smith, gas mask already affixed, just beyond. Smith lay crucifixion style, his arms outstretched at his sides, strapped to the gurney with taut black buckles. 

Smith looked over at his family and smiled. Deanna and Smith’s son Steven signed “I love you.” Smith’s smile reached from ear to ear. He signed them back despite the straps: “I love you, too.”

Around 7:55, a correctional officer removed a cap on the side of the gas mask and plugged a microphone into the wall. Holman Warden Terry Raybon then read the death warrant authorizing Smith’s execution and asked for any last words. 

“Tonight, Alabama causes humanity to take a step backwards,” Smith said. He thanked those who supported him in the wake of the botched attempt at his life a year earlier. “I’m leaving with love, peace, and light. Thank you for supporting me. I love all of you.”

Around 7:57, Smith began to react to the nitrogen flowing into the mask covering his face. He began thrashing against the straps, his whole body and head violently jerking back and forth for several minutes. 

As he convulsed, Deanna Smith began to sob. The text on her shirt, “Never Alone,” still reflected in the glass of the witness window. 

Soon, for around a minute, Smith appeared heaving and retching inside the mask.

By around 8:00, Smith’s struggle against the restraints had lessened, though he continued to gasp for air. Each time he did so, his body lifted against the restraints. 

Smith’s efforts to breathe continued for several minutes as his spiritual advisor Jeff Hood prayed nearby, tears streaming down his face. 

Soon, one of two correctional officers in the execution chamber stepped over Smith and looked into the mask but quickly returned to his position near the back wall of the room. 

Around 8:07 p.m., Smith made his last visible effort to breathe. 

Then, for about 8 minutes, witnesses watched on as Kenny lay motionless on the gurney in front of them. His hand, which had shown the “I love you sign,” was now balled into a fist, his black wedding ring standing out against his pale skin in the harsh fluorescent lights. 

At 8:15, prison officials closed the curtains to the execution chamber. An Alabama Department of Corrections official later relayed his time of death as 8:23 p.m.

After the execution, Deanna Smith and Steven Tiggleman drove back to the nearby hotel where they’d been staying. As she drove, Smith began thinking out loud. 

“Nobody should ever have to go through that again,” she said, sobbing as she tried her best to drive safely. “I wish he wouldn’t have had to go through this, but I hope that what happened tonight may save some of his brothers in the future. They all deserve better. We all deserve better.”

ATMORE, Ala. — Alabama confiscated her Bible.

Deanna Smith’s pink leather-bound Bible had sat in front of her Tuesday morning in the visitation room at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama, as she spoke about what the next few days might hold.

Soon, the State of Alabama will attempt — for the second time — to execute her husband, Kenneth Eugene Smith, for his role in the 1988 murder of Elizabeth Sennett.

Less than an hour into Tread’s interview with Smith and his family, a correctional officer entered the room.

“You can’t have that in here,” the guard told Deanna.

She’d been soft-spoken all morning, barely audible as she explained how she felt about the state’s planned attempt at her husband’s life. But now, as the state once again flexed its power over her, her voice was clear and firm.

“My Bible?” she asked. “I’ve brought it to every visit I’ve had. I brought it to every visit the last time you tried to kill him.”

The past didn’t matter. The guard took the Bible, left the visitation room, and locked the door behind her.

The confiscation was abrupt, but Smith and his family said nothing surprises them anymore. At every turn, they explained, the State of Alabama has done whatever it could to devalue their humanity. But Smith said he still has hope.

“The fat lady ain’t sang yet,” he told Tread on Tuesday, a metallic cross hanging from his neck.

For years, though, Alabama has been preparing for this very moment.

As states have found it increasingly difficult to obtain the drugs necessary for lethal injections, death penalty advocates began to eye alternative methods of killing human beings. Among those alternatives is nitrogen suffocation.

A redacted protocol released by the state outlines its plan to strap a mask to Kenny Smith’s face and fill it with pure nitrogen in an effort to Smith’s lead to death by hypoxia — a lack of oxygen. At least that’s what state officials hope will happen.

The execution method is untested, having never been used for judicially-sanctioned executions anywhere in the world. The storage and use of nitrogen gas, lawyers for the state have acknowledged, is risky, posing potentially fatal hazards not only to the state’s intended victim, but also to prison workers, spiritual advisors, members of the press, and other incarcerated individuals.

This isn’t the first time Alabama has tried to kill Kenny Smith.

In November 2022, Alabama officials strapped Smith down to a gurney and poked and prodded his body again and again in attempts to access his veins. At 11:21 p.m., after accessing only one of the two veins necessary for the lethal injection to move forward, Alabama abandoned its attempt to execute him. It would be the state’s third botched execution in a row.

That night, Kenny Smith became a survivor. On Thursday, he’ll struggle to remain one.

Still, Smith said he’s not hopeless.

“It ain’t over ‘til it’s over,” he said. “But I’ve cleaned my cell out, and I’ve made the mental shift I need to make.”

In late 2023, the Alabama Supreme Court cleared the way for Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to set a second execution date for Smith. He wrote to Tread at the time about the development.

“There wasn't much news about me in the news in the past month or so, so I had begun to feel a little more like myself in the last few weeks. But hearing the news from the Alabama Supreme Court this week has sent me spiraling back into deep anxiety and depression.

Had I not survived last year, the psychological trauma that starts when you actually get your date and only builds up in intensity throughout the process would neither be here nor there...I'd be dead. But I am here, and that trauma visited upon me last year has remained with me, and I am starting this next round at this extreme high level of PTSD (though mine is not post, it is ongoing!) It will only get worse. I'm not ready for this again…”

According to Smith, things did get worse.

Forced to be around guards who participated in the state’s first attempt at his life, Smith said that early on, he was seething with anger.

“They sat there and watched what happened to me,” Smith said. “It was a room full of people, but I was all alone.”

He considered what happened to him that night to be torture.

As time wore on, the anger melted into a resigned acceptance.

“It’s the reality of being behind these bars,” he explained. “I have no choice but to accept it — to accept them despite what they did.”

No matter the world’s perception of Smith, his family said he doesn’t deserve to die.

His mother, Linda Smith, said she still remembered going into labor with Kenny.

“It was July 4th, and he was born 10 minutes until six,” she said, smiling for the first time on Tuesday morning. “It was the happiest I’d ever been.

Linda said Smith and his brother Joey, a year and a half his junior, had been inseparable as kids. She remembered them playing in the woods — just enjoying each other’s company.

One of Smith’s sons, Steven Tiggleman, said some of his earliest memories are of his dad, who was incarcerated when he was just four.

“I remember riding in a dune buggy with him, and just being so, so happy,” Tiggleman said. “And I remember when he gave me an art set full of watercolors.”

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Tiggleman said that despite his father’s life behind bars, Smith has always been there for him.

“He’s never been absent from my life,” he said. “He’s helped me through so much. I’ll call him, and he’ll pray over me.”

Tiggleman said he wants people to know that Smith is more than what he did on a single day decades ago. His life, his son said, has value.

“I need him in my life,” he said. “I need him.”

In the decades since Smith gave his son his first art set, he’s become an artist himself. He draws and paints whatever speaks to him.

“It has to jump out at me and say ‘Draw me,’” Smith said.

In the wake of Alabama’s last attempt on his life, Smith said it was an image of a young girl that spoke to him. In it, the girl is sitting on the floor, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees.

“I loved the light and the dark,” he said. “She looked like she just came through something, and that’s something I felt deeply, too.”

Another time, it was something in his cell that called out to him — a pair of glasses gifted to Smith by Henry Hays before Hays’ execution.

Hays, a former KKK member, had been convicted of the lynching of Michael Donald, a Black teenager, in Mobile, Alabama, in 1981. His death sentence led to one of the only examples in state history of a white perpetrator being sentenced to execution for the murder of a Black victim.

When Hays came to Holman, Smith explained, Black folks on the row had a choice to make. They could harm Hays. They could hand him over “to the skinheads.” Or they could take him under their wing, forgiving him and regarding his life as having value, too. Smith said they chose the latter, and that decision, he said, reflected exactly who they were.

“That’s where humanity has to get to,” Smith said. “All life has value, and that’s something we all have to accept.”

Kenneth Smith has been executed by the State of Alabama. An eyewitness account will be posted on Tread Friday morning.

Late last year, I traveled from my home in Birmingham, Alabama, to Mobile County, where I was raised in a small town called Grand Bay. I’d made the trip south to learn more about a community about 30 miles from where I’d grown up — Prichard, a majority Black suburb just north of the City of Mobile. 

For decades, Prichard has suffered at the hands of its water utility, whose leaders have presided over mismanagement and fraud that has left the city crippled. 

Every month, Prichard’s residents lose around 60 percent of their water due to the city’s decaying water infrastructure — water purchased at ever-increasing prices from neighboring Mobile. 

As a result, residents are forced to cope with increasing bills, unreliable water service, flooding worsened by climate change and an overwhelmed drainage system, and fires that sometimes blaze while firefighters watch, unable to intervene because of low water pressure and sometimes-faulty fire hydrants. 

During my trip, I visited Alabama Village, a neighborhood in Prichard on the brink of collapse. There, I met residents like Da’Cino Dees who told me that he and his neighbors shouldn’t be forced to leave because of a decaying infrastructure they didn’t cause. Instead, Dees and those like him have found themselves at risk every day because of the governmental neglect and abuse that led to the conditions in Alabama Village today. 

Today, I’d like to announce some changes to Tread that will help me continue to produce journalism that makes a difference in the lives of those like Da’Cino – those often left out of Alabama’s story. 

First, I’m proud to let Tread readers know that I am now Inside Climate News’ full-time reporter here in Alabama. Inside Climate News is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, Pulitzer Prize-winning news organization that covers climate change, energy, and the environment. For years, the staff of ICN has worked tirelessly to expand local coverage across the country. That expansion has led to critical coverage of environmental issues as they play out on the ground in communities from coast to coast. 

It’s worth noting that in moving into Alabama, ICN could have engaged in what’s known as “parachute journalism” — the practice of shipping in a reporter who knows little about a state or its people. The leadership at ICN did the opposite in Alabama, choosing to engage with those already on the ground here in the Yellowhammer State. 

As a result of all these updates, you will see some changes in Tread. 

Beginning this year, Tread’s coverage will focus more squarely on the death penalty, an issue of paramount public importance. As of this writing, the State of Alabama plans to move forward with the nitrogen suffocation execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith on Thursday. I plan to witness the execution and will provide an eyewitness account here on Tread.

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I also hope to highlight some of my best work at ICN, as well as other environmental news here in the state, lifting up reporting (and reporters) who are keeping politicians and corporations accountable. 

So what does all this mean for readers of Tread? 

I want you to know, first of all, that I greatly appreciate your support. Thank you so much. Tread allowed me to successfully transition from one journalism job to another, and I couldn’t be more thankful. You’re the reason Tread’s future is bright. 

As always, I hope that you find what you read here at Tread to be useful, informative, and engaging journalism. Moving forward, I plan to publish stories on Tread approximately twice a month. These posts may be more frequent in the days leading up to and following executions here in the state. You’ll also likely begin to see stories I’ve reported for ICN shared by both local and national outlets. 

Again, I’d like to express my deep gratitude that you’ve continued to read and support Tread. As always, Tread’s reporting will remain free, and I ask that you only give what you’re able, if you’re able. 

Thank you for reading and sharing, 

Lee Hedgepeth

Founder, Tread by Lee

Alabama Reporter, Inside Climate News

Please send tips, tidbits, complaints and cat photos to reportingbylee@gmail.com or lee.hedgepeth@insideclimatenews.org. I do my best to respond to every message. 

NOTE: This story was originally published in BirminghamWatch, an outlet of the Alabama Initiative for Independent Journalism.

Sometimes the tears welled up in Brother Bryan’s eyes. 

Rev. James Alexander Bryan, a Princeton-educated pastor, had become known in Birmingham as an advocate for those facing homelessness.

“They are all dying for a little bit of love, for a kind word, for a warm handshake,” Brother Bryan said of those he served. “Beneath that torn coat or ragged shawl, the life may be torn, but there is a soul for whom Jesus died…”

This week, Terrance Smith sat in a Birmingham park named after Brother Bryan. Smith is among hundreds facing unsheltered homelessness in and around Birmingham, many of whom frequent the city’s parks, including Brother Bryan in the Five Points neighborhood. 

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Earlier this month, Birmingham city councilors discussed individuals facing homelessness in Brother Bryan Park after a member of the public asked that city officials do more to address what he described as a “real problem.”

“It’s just horrifying what goes on over there,” Councilor Valerie Abbott said at the body’s meeting on August 8. “There are people living in the park, and no other people will go in there.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Smith reacted to the council’s comments, saying he felt some of the discussion was offensive. Councilors, Smith said, should “get to know their neighbors.”

“I think they’re wrong,” Smith said, an etching of Brother Bryan on a stone facade just a stone’s throw away. “They just push us aside like we’re not people, but they forget. God created me. God created them. So what’s the difference?”

A public appeal

Ricky Green said no one in their “right mind” would choose to live on the streets. 

Green, a resident of Five Points South, spoke to the Birmingham City Council earlier this month, asking its members to address homelessness in the area.

“They hang out all in the park getting high and doing things of that nature, pulling out their private parts, using the restroom just right in the open,” he said. 

Green suggested additional police patrols and a “special task force to go around and round these people up.” 

“I don’t want to just attack them, because I know the situation that we’re in, but I think we should come up with something,” he said.

Multiple city councilors asked to speak about Green’s concerns.

Council President Wardine Alexander began by saying that addressing “the issue before us” would take a collaborative effort and pointed to the city’s proposed pilot program to fund temporary microshelters as one example. 

“It’s just a great collaborative effort that takes place, but the issues you brought to our attention are definitely on our radar,” she told Green.

Councilor Darrell O'Quinn said a veterinary cardiologist whose practice is located across from the park has reached out to him on multiple occasions with concerns. 

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“It’s a pretty dire situation,” he said.

Councilor Valerie Abbott’s tone was even more stark. 

“Brother Bryan Park is an embarrassment to the City of Birmingham,” Abbott said. 

Abbott said that someone sent her an explicit video of individuals in the park. 

“Mr. Green has children. He would like to take them to a park, but you sure as heck wouldn’t take him to that park,” she said. “I would be afraid to go there myself in the daytime.”

Like Green, Abbott also expressed concern that homelessness in the park would impact business in Five Points. 

“Poor Brother Bryan Park has been forgotten by someone, because no one’s doing anything,” Abbott said. 

Councilor Carol Clarke said that she believed businesses in the area are willing to be part of the solution.

“They are, you know, in regular touch with folks who frequent the park and not insensitive — as Mr. Green noted — to their issues, but they would also like to invest in making the park better, not just physically, but I would imagine also, in whatever kind of provision to help intervene on the circumstances there with individuals,” she said. 

In response to the council’s concerns, Mayor Randall Woodfin’s Chief of Staff, Cedric Sparks, told councilors that the city staff have been out to the park multiple times. 

The city’s plan involves engagement, recommendations for nonprofits that provide “feeding opportunities” in the park, and “increasing visibility” in the park through staffing and technology, according to Sparks.

“Oftentimes, when they go out, obviously that's behavior that they want to catch while it's happening,” Sparks said of alleged incidents in the park. “But they also want to maintain the dignity of the individuals who are there as well. So it's a delicate balance.”

In Brother Bryan’s shadow

Having heard the council’s discussion, Terrance Smith said he doesn’t believe public officials truly understand individuals like him. Brother Bryan Park hasn’t been forgotten, he said Tuesday. People like him have been forgotten.

Smith said he – like everyone – is aware of crimes in and around the park, but the perpetrators aren’t always individuals facing homelessness. 

Data shows that individuals facing homelessness are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than they are to be perpetrators, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. 

Smith said increasing police surveillance and presence in the park will, in the end, be counterproductive. 

“What are they going to do?” Smith said. “Arrest us? Is that what they want?”

Having an arrest record only makes getting stable housing that much more difficult, Smith said. 

Smith said he’s faced homelessness in Birmingham for about four years. When his mother died, Smith said, he found it difficult to continue living in her apartment, and he began a downward spiral. 

Hundreds of individuals face homelessness in and around the Magic City on any given day. While overall homelessness has declined in recent years, the number of individuals sleeping on the city’s streets has nearly doubled, from an estimated 196 individuals in 2016 to 382 individuals in 2023, according to One Roof’s annual point-in-time count. Michelle Farley, the homelessness service provider’s executive director, has also said she believes the actual number of individuals facing homelessness could be four times higher than the data suggests. 

Earlier this year, city officials announced Birmingham would spend $1 million on a pilot program they said would provide temporary housing for homeless residents. 

At the time, city officials said plans for the program would be finalized in April and that the program would be launched in May. 

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Asked for an update on the program, Marie Sutton, Public Information Officer for the Mayor’s Office, did not provide a specific timeline for when the delayed project would actually begin. 

“The Department of Community Development continues work to finalize the Home for All micro shelter pilot project and looks forward to providing a public update on the effort in the near future,” she wrote in an email. 

The proposed program isn’t the first time microshelters have been proposed for those experiencing homelessness in the city. Last year, efforts to house individuals facing homelessness displaced by the security perimeter of the World Games were scrapped after widespread criticism by members of the public and homelessness experts. 

At a press conference announcing that the “Compassion Project” would not move forward with its plans during the World Games, One Roof’s Michelle Farley said that she’s been opposed to the microshelter movement as it has gained popularity. 

“There is no way that these tiny microshelters can provide dignity for people,” she said at the time. “They need permanent supportive housing. But the money has not been there for the type of safe, decent, and affordable housing that we need.”

Asked about city investments in those facing homelessness, Sutton pointed to construction funding for Firehouse Ministries, a religiously-affiliated shelter that serves only men, and AIDS Alabama’s Way Station, which serves only youth. 

“The city's overall, comprehensive vision to create home options for all Birmingham residents includes the above efforts as well as several affordable home development projects in the works across the city, programs for down payment assistance, lead abatement and critical repairs,” she wrote. 

Terrance Smith said he doesn’t believe the city is doing enough to provide direct services to those who need them without unnecessary barriers.

A good start, Smith said, would be for public officials to change the way they speak about those facing homelessness. No councilor should be afraid to come to the park and speak to him, Smith said, Brother Bryan’s etching glowing behind him in the setting Alabama sun. 

“They should all get to know who they neighbor is,” Smith said. “Come anytime. I’m right here.” 

Chaos, violence, and death.

Derrol Shaw said those are the realities of everyday life in Donaldson Correctional Facility, a state-run prison in west Jefferson County, Alabama.

Shaw described the conditions in videos posted to social media on Sunday. As he spoke, Shaw wore a correctional officer’s uniform, the name G. Downey and a badge embroidered on its top.

“It’s just complete chaos. It’s absolute chaos every single day,” he said. “Chaos, violence, and death, every single day.”

In a statement issued to Tread, a representative of the Alabama Department of Corrections called what happened Sunday a “security incident,” saying that the facility had been placed on lockdown but that there was no threat to public safety.

In an update, the department confirmed that Shaw, 35, had been arrested in relation to the “incident.'“

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“The security incident took place early morning at Donaldson Correctional Facility in Bessemer, Alabama,” the update said. “The facility remains on lockdown for the safety of the staff and the inmates, but there were no injuries to correctional staff and there is no threat to the public.”

Sources inside the facility told Tread that Shaw took a gun and uniform from an officer during an altercation. A third video also shows Shaw with what appears to be a gun in his hand. ADOC correctional officers inside prison facilities are typically unarmed, according to department policy documents. ADOC has not provided an explanation for how the gun entered the facility.

Shaw said in one of the videos that he made clear to prison staff that no one would be harmed.

Shaw said Alabama prisons are like warzones, with individuals dying at high rates from violence and neglect. The conditions have left many of those living in the facility traumatized, he said, including himself. Shaw has so far served nearly 17 years in Alabama prisons.

Over half a dozen incarcerated individuals have died in Donaldson so far in 2023. A U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) report published in 2019 concluded that the conditions in Alabama’s overcrowded prisons are unconstitutional, leaving both incarcerated individuals and prison staff at risk. The DOJ later sued to force the state to improve conditions — a legal battle that is still ongoing.

The 2019 report cited violence at Donaldson as a particular problem. In March 2018, for example, an inmate at the facility had to undergo emergency surgery to remove a broom from his rectum after an assault.

“Four prisoners were identified as suspects and received disciplinary violations for Assault on an Inmate with a Weapon and Sexual Assault (forcible),” the report said. “Yet no ADOC staff member was aware of the assault until the seriously injured victim sought out a correctional officer for help.”

The violent assault was one of many, DOJ investigators concluded.

“This incident is just one of hundreds of similar incidents that are documented by ADOC throughout Alabama’s prisons,” the report said. “Prisoner-on-prisoner violence is systemic and life-threatening. ADOC is failing to adequately protect its prisoners from harm, in violation of the Eighth Amendment.”

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Years later, though, little has improved in Alabama prisons. In fact, by most measures, the situation has gotten worse.

Shaw said that he believes Alabama’s carceral system has a specific function, both historically and today.

“They really believe that in Alabama — modern-day slavery,” Shaw said in one of the videos. A bandage is wrapped around one of Shaw’s arms, blood clearly visible through the material. “If you ever read the 1901 constitution, this is the continuation of slavery.”

The purpose of Alabama’s constitution, according to its framers, was “to establish white supremacy in this State.”

UPDATE: In a statement sent after this article’s initial publication, a representative of ADOC denied that a hostage situation occurred at Donaldson on Sunday. The statement did not provide details about how Shaw obtained the guard uniform and gun visible in the videos circulating online. The representative still did not answer questions about the level of force used to subdue Shaw but said he was treated for “minor injuries.”

NOTE: This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. It is republished with permission.

Sometimes Thomasine Jackson can’t get to work. 

Jackson, 65, said if there’s been a hard rain, water covers her entire street, leaving her no choice but to call her supervisor at Drummond Coal and tell him she can’t make it in. 

“It is what it is,” she said one humid August day, standing in the front yard of her modest brick home in Birmingham. Overhead, an Alabama thunderstorm was already brewing. 

Jackson may work for a coal company, but she knows the science. Climate change, she understands, will only make conditions worse. 

That reality is why Jackson has become known as the “tree lady” in the East Thomas community, where she serves as president of the neighborhood association. And it’s why those like Jackson—with the support of a local nonprofit and the county’s health department—aim to plant more trees in her neighborhood and beyond. Increasing the tree canopy in urban areas like Birmingham can help to mitigate the everyday impacts of climate change, experts and advocates have said, while also simply improving the lives of residents. 

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“Public Health Threat”

Dr. Mark Wilson knows the value of a good tree. 

Wilson has served for more than a decade as Jefferson County, Alabama’s health officer. 

He said that in recent years, he’s thought more intently about the Jefferson County Department of Health’s role in addressing the causes and impacts of climate change.

“You know, historically, I’ve been kind of warned that in Alabama, you might want to be careful about using that term, from a political standpoint,” Wilson explained in an interview. “But I just feel like it’s too important and that we needed to start addressing it as a health department and maybe lead by example a little bit.”

Earlier this year, the county’s health board took the step of declaring climate change a public health threat.

Wilson said that much shouldn’t be controversial.

“It’s obvious,” he said.

What’s also undeniable, Wilson said—particularly in the Alabama August—is the need for more shade in Birmingham and surrounding Jefferson County.

“Even around our own health department, if I walk two or three blocks from here, if you’re walking on a sidewalk with no trees, it’s almost unbearable,” he said. 

Excessive heat can be especially dangerous for people outside for extended periods, like construction or postal workers, or for those who may not have adequate housing or air conditioning on hot days, Wilson explained. 

“Some elderly people may not have air conditioning at all or may not be able to afford it so they might die of heat-related illness in their own home when it gets extreme,” Wilson said. “Having shade around the building you live in can reduce the baseline temperature and lower air conditioning costs.”

Trees provide other benefits, too. 

“Trees improve air quality, and they take on stormwater that often floods out low-income communities,” said Francesca Gross. She’s the program manager at Cool Green Trees, a local nonprofit aimed at mitigating climate change by increasing planting “the right trees in the right place.”

Gross had been planting trees in low-income areas on a shoestring budget until earlier this year when she was approached by Wilson, who was looking for a partner who could be the “boots on the ground” for a tree-planting project. 

“In the nonprofit world, it’s almost unprecedented to have someone to take something you’ve been working on and fund it in such an impactful way,” Gross said. 

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Under Wilson’s leadership, the Jefferson County Department of Health committed $400,000 to the project for the first year and $250,000 for an additional four years. 

He said the move isn’t just beneficial for public health. It’s good for the department, too. 

“We have a fleet of about 100 cars, for example,” Wilson said. “So we have a carbon footprint as a department … This is a sort of soft way of doing our part.”

The money will soon pay off. Cool Green Trees will begin its first planting season using health department funding this fall. 

It’s something the nonprofit’s staff is excited to begin.

“It’s the smell of pine needles on the ground,” said Patrick McMahon, Cool Green Trees’ urban arborist. “And the leaves changing colors through the seasons. That’s what inspires me.” 

Like Wilson, McMahon was a Boy Scout who had grown up more accustomed to being outside than in. 

“My parents never let me inside,” he said, laughing. 

Soon, McMahon will put his skills to work, helping residents like Jackson plant trees for their future. 

Of faith and floods

Jackson can remember when there were houses across the street from hers, lined up side-by-side just like their neighbors. 

But in the early 1990s, all the residents were forced out, she said—displaced by the threat of constant flooding from Village Creek, which snaked across their backyards, separating the mostly Black residents from an industrial railway. The homes were torn down, Jackson explained, and only green space remained.

Since then, Jackson said, she’s held onto faith—a firm, abiding belief that her home, unlike the ones across the street, won’t soon succumb to the creeping waters of Village Creek. 

But it was the fear that first brought the idea to Jackson’s mind, she said. 

The last time her street flooded, leaving her stuck at home from work, Jackson began to consider ways the neighborhood could help to mitigate the flooding.

“I thought there had to be a way to plant trees that would suck up the water,” she said. “We just have to know what kind of trees to put there.”

Jackson began doing research about the best ways to mitigate flooding through landscaping. That’s how she connected with Francesca Gross of Cool Green Trees. 

The pair had already begun looking into solutions when the World Games, an international sporting event, came to the Magic City. 

Jackson said they saw the event as an opportunity. 

“You know when these big events come, they have to do a sustainability project,” Jackson said.

Soon, the World Games and Vulcan Material Company, one of the nation’s largest producers of construction materials, were working with Jackson and Gross to place 35 trees in 35 vacant lots along the flood zone. The trees were planted in November 2021, less than a year before the start of the games in Birmingham. 

Jackson knows her neighborhood won’t see the full benefit of the new trees for years, but she feels like it’s a step in the right direction, no matter how small. 

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Urban Heat Islands

Dr. Wilson wasn’t exaggerating. The Jefferson County Department of Health’s office, located in downtown Birmingham, Alabama, is in the middle of what scientists call an “urban heat island,” an area of dense infrastructure that lacks tree cover and is often several degrees hotter than the surrounding suburban and rural areas. 

A review of studies cited by the Environmental Protection Agency shows that daytime temperatures in urban areas like Birmingham can be up to seven degrees warmer than outlying areas during the day.

“Research predicts that the heat island effect will strengthen in the future as the structure, spatial extent, and population density of urban areas change and grow,” the agency has said.

Gross hopes projects like Cool Green Trees can help mitigate the impact of urban heat islands, which often disproportionately impact minority communities. 

To aid in their work, the organization collaborated with a mapping expert at the University of Alabama at Birmingham to visualize factors that would help their team identify both the scope of the problem and the best opportunities for change. 

She said the resulting story map can help community members see the impact of climate change on their own neighborhoods and those around them.

“And when you look, you can also see the results of being in a low-income area and the long-term health results of that,” Gross said. 

A report published in July in Science Advances which included subjects from the Birmingham area showed that individuals who lived near green spaces “were biologically 2.5 years younger, on average, than those who live near less greenness.”

“When we think about staying healthy as we get older, we usually focus on things like eating well, exercising and getting enough sleep,” the study’s first author, Dr. Kyeezu Kim, a postdoctoral scholar in Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, said. “However, our research shows that the environment we live in, specifically our community and access to green spaces, is also important for staying healthy as we age.”

In cities across the country, including in the South, those impacts also have a racial disparity—a result of systemically racist systems built over decades. 

“If you put a map of the redlining in Birmingham with a map of the tree canopy, … it matches up almost exactly,” Gross has said.

It’s something Wilson said the health department is committed to addressing. 

“Our health department has embraced health equity, and promoting health equity, and putting extra resources into those communities that are underserved, or may have health disparities based on our history of racism and other issues of poverty and such,” he said.

Addressing urban heat islands, then, is a way to move towards that goal of not allowing race or place to determine health outcomes.

“Most of these urban heat islands in our area are in low-income neighborhoods that have historically been deprived of resources,” Wilson said. “This is promoting health equity.”

A Daughter of Dynamite Hill

That history—of redlines and green spaces—is part of the soul of East Thomas, the neighborhood where Jackson has spent her life. 

In the first years of her life, the community had a more infamous name: Dynamite Hill.

But it’s the solutions, not the problems, that keep Jackson moving forward, one step at a time.

On an August morning, she walked along a bridge over Village Creek, pointing to debris preventing the water below from flowing freely. 

It’s trying to fix things like this—tangible issues like this Beautyrest mattress blocking the waterway—that make her feel she’s making a difference when it comes to an issue that feels almost insurmountable.

And, Jackson said, those small changes may just help keep Village Creek from creeping up to her and her neighbors’ doors too. She’s recently renovated her home, she said, and she doesn’t plan to leave. 

She has no choice but to keep the water at bay. 

“But I’ve got faith,” she said, smiling. “I’ve got complete faith.”

In late July, as darkness slouched over the south Alabama pines outside Holman prison, the State of Alabama executed James “Jimi” Barber for the 2001 murder of Dorothy “Dottie” Epps. His time of death, according to prison officials, was 1:56 a.m.

In the days and hours before his execution, Barber was visited by Sarah Gregory, Epps’ granddaughter, who opposed his execution.

The following is a journal entry written by Sarah Gregory recounting her visits with Jimi Barber and his final moments, published for the first time by Tread.

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In 2001, my grandmother was murdered by a friend of our family. I spent over 13 years in substance use trying to forget my anger and pain. I got clean in 2013 and began to work on myself, yet I could not let go of the pain from her loss or the rage I had toward the man who inflicted such violence. I had tried for years but could not allow myself to even say his name. On her birthday, July 29th of 2020, I wrote to her on Facebook. I wrote, in part, “My heart wants to rid myself of the weight of this feeling (hatred). You forgave everyone, believed in everyone, believed everyone could change, and saw the good in all. For me to hate is to disrespect the values you instilled in me. Lord, help me to forgive the unforgivable. Help me release him from the power he has had over me for almost two years.”

God answered my prayer only a few months later. I was sitting in my car listening to E-Street Radio and “Letter to You” came on. I broke down and cried the entire song. That night, I sat down and prayed for guidance. I did as Bruce sang, I took all my fears and doubts, all my happiness and pain and dug deep in my soul and signed my name true…I felt the pain ease.

I had no idea that that letter would lead to the most beautiful friendship. I had no idea God would take my pain and show me His grace. We continued writing, then speaking on the phone, until it turned into a weekly (sometime more) occurrence. Jimi became the person who supported me when I needed it the most. He helped me navigate my son who suffers from severe mental health, he prayed for me and with me, and he was (after my husband) the person who I could not wait to share things with. Jimi gathered all of Death Row at Holman prison to rally behind my son. Multiple times they would all pray for us while I was on the phone. It would bring me to tears. Prior to the execution, I received a beautiful handmade box made of tiny pebbles that all the men gathered as a way to say thank you.

I was able to visit Jimi and his family for almost seven hours on July 19th and 20th. This was one of the most meaningful, beautiful, and heartbreaking moments of my life. As I approached the prison, I felt sadness seeing the conditions he had lived in — yes, due to his own actions and consequences thereof — but still sadness. Cold, dark, isolated cells surrounded by multiple fences, barbed wire, and a sense of evil in the air. Once I entered the gates and was escorted to the visiting room, my eyes saw him for the first time in over 20 years. I saw the man that caused myself and my family the greatest pain one could endure. Yet, as I saw him my heart felt happy. I immediately looked into the eyes of my friend and saw regret, love, and admiration in return. It looked as though not a day had gone by. Yes, years have changed us both, but he was still the same man I remembered.

Once the door opened to the visiting area, I was immediately greeted by the other visitors in the room. First, Jimi hugged my mother, who had managed to slip in without her ID being checked. She was denied her visit pass due to being a direct victim of his crime, but I was approved. Jimi said he had prayed that somehow God would allow one hug from her, and He did. Jimi then turned to me and the hug we shared was the deepest and most sincere embrace. It was absolute forgiveness. I looked around the room and everyone was in tears. However, within three minutes the guards had checked the IDs and quickly removed both my mother and myself from the prison. I was very upset because I had too much to say to him. Once again, God stepped in, and I was called by the warden to return without my mother.

Once I returned, we sat and talked. We remembered things from before the murder and spoke of my grandmother. I spoke to his family, who kept thanking me for forgiving him. One of his brothers told me that my forgiveness was the catalyst to his forgiveness. Many tears were shed, many hugs given, and a lot of healing happened in that cold, secure prison room. That night, my mother and I had dinner with Jimi’s brother, niece, and his spiritual advisor. We supported each other, healed some more, and encouraged each other for what we all knew would be a very sad next day.

The day of the 20th was the most beautiful and the most heartbreaking day. We all met outside the prison wall at 8:30 a.m. The hugs and the tears were ready before we even entered. Jimi was eagerly waiting as everyone went through the security process again. He was pacing back and forth and talking through the window slots every chance he could. After we all completed the security procedures, Jimi greeted each of us with a long, strong hug. The kind of hug one gives when you don’t want to ever let go.

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After everyone received a “Jimi hug,” he asked to speak. At that time, he read his last words since he knew he would not be able in the chamber. Jimi made almost constant eye contact with me, as though looking for security, strength, and peace as he pushed through reading the hardest speech of his life. His brother Mark walked over and put his arm around me. We held each other the entire time. Mark had told me the night before that my forgiveness was what brought forth his forgiveness for his brother. He thanked me for bringing his family back together and for bringing some sense of peace and light to this whole situation. So, when he held me, I could feel everything he said. Everyone, including Jimi, cried and all our hearts broke in a way that was almost palpable. Then, Jimi said that was enough and made a joke and we all laughed.

His church member was permitted to bring a guitar, so after all tears we dried we began to sing. “Mary Did You Know” was sung by his niece — the most beautiful rendition of that song I have ever heard. Other hymns were sung, and Jimi sang Bruce Springsteen’s “Nebraska” directly to me. Bruce’s song “Letter to You” was what had brought us back together, and Nebraska was stark reality he and I had discussed many times before. I cried as he sang, and he never broke eye contact.

Many guards had stopped to witness what they later said was something they had never seen — not only a victim’s family member visiting with the convicted, but together singing, laughing, and hugging. One guard asked if we could sing “Amazing Grace,” to which we obliged. Every person in that room sang with all the emotions we had left. The guard cried, praised God, and sang. It was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Then we sang “When the Saints Come Marching In,” and Jimi led us all in a train dance around the room for the entire song. We praised God, sang, and cheered, and we circled the room. I remember seeing all the guards and admin staff looking in complete amazement, many crying.

As time drew to an end, we stopped and took communion. Jimi handed each of us the Bread to represent the Body of Christ, we each hugged him, and stood there solemnly and cried. After a prayer was completed, we knew it was time to go. I hugged each of the people in the room, and with each person more tears came. Finally, when I got to Jimi I could barely speak. I was sobbing and could only hold him. He asked me to never stop sharing our story, and I promised him I would not. He asked that I tell of our visit, and I promised him I would. I placed my shaking hands on his face and thanked him for saving me. I thanked him for showing me the greatest gift God could bestow upon a person. I thanked him for being my best friend these last three years. He kissed my cheek, we hugged, and I had to leave.

Two of his attorneys were waiting to enter, and as I passed them, I hugged them, thanked them for trying to save my friend, and cried. When I returned to my car, all I could do was cry uncontrollably. Every part of my being wanted to run through those gates, hug him again, and not let go. My heart broke for Jimi, for his family, and for his best friend who stayed next to his side until he met God. May God give them all strength and comfort, and may they all be reunited in Heaven.

I did not see my friend again until the curtain of the execution chamber was lifted. There he was, strapped to the gurney, IVs coming out of his arms, and his lower body wrapped in a cocoon of blankets. Yet, he smiled and even told jokes to the men who were in the room with him. He made a brief statement of remorse and love and forgave the Governor and State for what they were about to do. Then, as the medications began to enter his body, he turned to make eye contact one last time. I pray my face provided some sort of comfort to him. He then closed his eyes and met God a short time later. I have now experienced two murders in my life. Both changed me, both shattered me, and I pray that together both will lead me to be the person I was always meant to be.

Not only did God answer my prayer that July day in 2020, He used me as His vessel and showed me the most beautiful gift. I celebrate what God allowed Jimi and me to do together. I celebrate my grandmother and all she means to me. I celebrate and mourn the loss of her and of one of the best friends I have ever had. Just think of what God did for me to say, with all my heart…my friend.

You can read an additional eyewitness account of Barber’s execution by Tread’s Lee Hedgepeth here.

When James Barber’s friends and family gathered with him before the Alabama man’s execution Thursday, they sang.

One family member sang “Mary Did You Know,” a Southern staple.

Then, together, they sang “When the Saints Go Marching In,” sources told Tread, and James Barber led them all in a march around the room.

Finally, a prison staff member requested “Amazing Grace.”

They obliged.

Then, well after midnight, as darkness slouched over the south Alabama pines outside Holman prison, the State of Alabama executed James “Jimi” Barber for the 2001 murder of Dorothy “Dottie” Epps. His time of death, according to prison officials, was 1:56 a.m.

Before the State ended Barber’s life, he apologized to the Epps family and said he forgave Gov. Ivey and those in the execution chamber for what they were about to do.

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Barber was the first person executed in Alabama since the state abandoned two attempted lethal injections and botched another when prison staff failed to access condemned citizens’ veins.

On Wednesday and Thursday, hours before his execution, Barber had been visited by Sarah Gregory, Epps’ granddaughter, who has said she opposed Alabama putting her grandmother’s killer to death.

In the days before his death, Barber had said he’d received something he did not deserve — forgiveness.

“We have had the privilege of experiencing one of the most powerful spiritual forces in the universe: forgiveness,” Barber said. “I did not deserve it. I could not earn it. But I could not and will not ever take it for granted. Our lives have been changed in many wonderful and very miraculous ways.”

The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for Barber’s execution at 12:13 a.m. in a 6-3 vote. While the court’s majority did not provide a reason for allowing the lethal injection to move forward, Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson issued a written dissent.

“This Court’s decision denying Barber’s request for a stay allows Alabama to experiment again with a human life,” the three justices wrote in the late-night decision.

“I forgive you for what you’re about to do”

Members of the press were moved to Holman for the execution around 1:05 a.m., a little less than an hour after the Supreme Court voted to allow the lethal injection to move forward.

At 1:22, members of the press entered the witness chamber.

There, witnesses chosen by James Barber, including his lawyer Mara Klebenar, were already seated.

“Time, please,” the lawyer asked a guard. No response.

“Do you have a watch?” Klebenar asked Tread’s Lee Hedgepeth. Members of the press were told watches were allowed under ADOC policy before being moved to Holman. A federal judge had denied Barber’s lawyer, however, the right to have a watch inside the execution witness chamber, citing a prison policy against jewelry.

Tread’s Lee Hedgepeth provided time updates to the lawyer when asked.

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The curtains of the execution’s witness chamber opened at 1:30 a.m.

IV lines entered both of Barber’s hands as he lay, arms outstretched, with his torso strapped to the gurney. Bare fluorescent lights lit his body below.

While the execution warrant was being read, Klebenar placed her hand on the glass of the execution chamber’s window. A guard told her to remove it.

Barber looked ahead of him. His eyes were open and he appeared responsive as the execution warrant was read.

Around 1:33 a.m., a prison official asked for Barber’s last words.

He’d written down final words, Barber said in the execution chamber, but he hadn’t been allowed to read them from a piece of paper.

He spoke first to the family of Dorothy Epps, his victim.

“I love them. I’m sorry for what happened. I truly am. I can’t apologize anymore — no words would fit,” he said.

Barber then addressed Gov. Kay Ivey and those in the execution chamber.

“I forgive you for what you’re about to do.”

After the warden had exited the chamber, Barber began speaking to his spiritual advisor, an older white man wearing a patterned pink button-down.

Around 1:35, the spiritual advisor appeared to pray with Barber, placing his hand on the condemned man’s feet as he spoke.

At 1:37, Barber smiled. Then his eyes rolled back and slowly closed.

All movement stopped, save for Barber’s breathing, which became labored.

At 1:39, Barber’s mouth fell slightly open. A guard performed a consciousness check.

“Inmate Barber,” the guard yelled.

At 1:40, the guard pinched Barber’s arm and gently pushed back on his eyelashes.

Around the same time, Klebenar noted his labored breathing.

“It’s like it’s contracting,” she said of his stomach. “It’s not normal breathing.”

The labored breathing continued until about 1:41 a.m., when all movement ceased.

At 1:47 a.m., the curtain of the execution chamber closed. Klebenar placed her hand on the glass a final time.

“Ma’am,” a guard chided her again.

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Barber had asked U.S. Supreme Court Justices to halt his execution to provide him the opportunity to prove that Alabama’s effort to lethally inject him — like the attempted executions before it — would go awry, subjecting him to cruel and unusual punishment forbidden by the U.S. Constitution.

The state’s effort to put Barber to death comes after Alabama botched three consecutive attempts at executions: the lethal injection of Joe Nathan James, which led to his death, and the attempted lethal injections of Alan Miller and Kenny Smith. Both Miller and Smith survived the state’s attempts to kill them.

Difficulty establishing vein access by members of the execution team led to the state’s failures to carry out its grim mission, officials would later confirm.

Those failures led to a brief moratorium on state-sanctioned deaths while its Department of Corrections conducted a review of the execution process. But months later, the in-house review, widely criticized as lacking rigor and independence, led to no substantive reforms of the death penalty system. Instead, the state chose to increase the window of time allowed for executions to be carried out and limited reviews of “plain errors” in capital cases.

In the wake of those failures, though, Barber argued that another attempted execution by lethal injection would violate the Constitution. Instead, Barber requested that his death come by nitrogen suffocation, an untested, unregulated method of execution allowed by Alabama law.

Still, federal courts rejected Barber’s argument that the state’s checkered history should prevent his execution. Dissenting from her court’s decision not to stop Barber’s execution, Judge Jill Pryor said the Alabama prison system would soon make Barber its “guinea pig.” Three Supreme Court Justices echoed that concern in their dissent.

In a press conference after the execution, John Hamm, Alabama’s prison commissioner said that it took the IV team 3 sticks to gain access to Barber’s veins.

But even days before Alabama would take his life, Barber had already set his faith in courts aside. He believed in something beyond the State of Alabama, he explained.

“My hope lies in the promises of my Creator, who is always faithful,” Barber said. “He is hope.”