Additional Coverage:
- Alabama set to execute convicted murderer, then skip autopsy (newsbreak.com)
Keith Edmund Gavin, a 64-year-old man convicted of the fatal shooting of a delivery driver who was withdrawing money from an ATM to take his wife out for dinner, is slated for execution this Thursday in southwest Alabama. Gavin will face the death penalty via lethal injection for the 1998 murder of William Clayton Jr. in Cherokee.
Recently, Alabama consented to waive the customary post-execution autopsy for Gavin, respecting his Muslim faith which he argued would be violated by the procedure. Gavin had previously initiated a legal challenge against the autopsy plans, which was settled by the state.
According to court records, Clayton, a courier service driver, was attacked while accessing an ATM in Centre on March 6, 1998, after work. During what prosecutors described as an attempted robbery, Gavin allegedly shot Clayton, placed him in the passenger seat of his own van, and drove away. A pursuing officer testified that the van’s driver, later identified as Gavin, fired shots at him before abandoning the vehicle and escaping on foot.
At the time of Clayton’s murder, Gavin was on parole following a 17-year stint in an Illinois prison for a previous murder conviction. The Attorney General’s office of Alabama has emphasized Gavin’s culpability and the gravity of his actions.
Gavin was found guilty of capital murder, with a jury voting 10-2 in favor of a death sentence, later imposed by a judge. A federal judge in 2020 declared Gavin had ineffective counsel during his sentencing, as mitigating factors like his troubled upbringing in a violent Chicago neighborhood weren’t adequately presented. However, an appeals court later nullified this ruling, upholding the death sentence.
In the days leading up to his execution, Gavin personally managed his appeals, including a handwritten plea to halt the lethal injection. His requests were denied by both a circuit judge and the Alabama Supreme Bishop.
Opponents of the death penalty, citing concerns over the fairness of his trial and the state’s opposition to a decreasing national trend in executions, have sought clemency for Gavin from Governor Kay Ivey. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Alabama’s execution of Gavin would mark the state’s third this year and the tenth in the U.S.
Earlier this year, Alabama conducted the nation’s first execution using nitrogen gas, although lethal injection remains the primary method. Other states, including Texas, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Missouri, have also proceeded with executions this year.
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- Alabama set to execute convicted murderer, then skip autopsy (newsbreak.com)