Estate of Executed Tennessee Prisoner Seeks DNA Testing to Establish His Innocence

Tennessee exe­cut­ed Sedley Alley in 2006 for the bru­tal rape and mur­der of Marine Lance Corporal Suzanne Collins, after hav­ing denied him DNA test­ing that his lawyers believed could have estab­lished his inno­cence. Now, after new evi­dence sug­gests that anoth­er man may have com­mit­ted the mur­der, the Innocence Project has filed a peti­tion in Shelby County (Memphis) Criminal Court on behalf of Alley’s estate renew­ing Alley’s request for DNA test­ing. Local coun­sel also sent a let­ter to Governor Bill Lee ask­ing him to exer­cise his clemen­cy pow­er to order DNA test­ing and, if the evi­dence exon­er­ates Alley, to issue a posthumous pardon. 

Innocence Project co-founder and spe­cial coun­sel Barry Scheck announced the fil­ings at a May 1, 2019, news con­fer­ence in Memphis. ​“There has nev­er been a full and fair hear­ing on Mr. Alley’s guilt or inno­cence,” Scheck said. ​“This case has all the tell-tale signs of a wrong­ful con­vic­tion – a con­fes­sion that has been demon­strat­ed to be false by objec­tive foren­sic evi­dence, mis­tak­en eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, and, most dis­turb­ing, the refusal to test DNA evi­dence that could have exon­er­at­ed Mr. Alley or removed the doubts about his guilt.” Alley was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death after the lawyers appoint­ed to rep­re­sent him at tri­al failed to inves­ti­gate glar­ing incon­sis­ten­cies between the phys­i­cal evi­dence and a con­fes­sion Alley con­sis­tent­ly said had been coerced. Instead, with no pri­or his­to­ry of men­tal ill­ness, his lawyers argued that he suf­fered from a mul­ti­ple-per­son­al­i­ty dis­or­der and was not guilty by rea­son of insan­i­ty. In 2003, after Alley had lost his appeals, new lawyers, includ­ing assis­tant fed­er­al defend­er Kelly Henry (pic­tured, at the news con­fer­ence), were appoint­ed to rep­re­sent Alley in clemen­cy pro­ceed­ings. ​“When I start­ed look­ing at the evi­dence, I imme­di­ate­ly real­ized that this was a case of inno­cence, and that nobody — nobody — had real­ized it,” Henry said.

Alley’s clemen­cy lawyers found numer­ous incon­sis­ten­cies in the state’s evi­dence, unearthed evi­dence that point­ed to anoth­er sus­pect who fit the eye­wit­ness descrip­tions of the mur­der­er and had a car that matched descrip­tions of the murderer’s car, and dis­cov­ered that Alley had been at home under police sur­veil­lance at the time Collins was raped and killed. Based on these dis­cov­er­ies, they asked for DNA test­ing of cloth­ing and the mur­der weapon. The evi­dence per­suad­ed the Tennessee Board of Parole to rec­om­mend that then-Governor Phil Bredesen stay Mr. Alley’s exe­cu­tion and order DNA test­ing. Instead, Bredesen direct­ed the lawyers to present their request for test­ing to the Tennessee courts, which refused to allow the test­ing to occur. Five years lat­er, the Tennessee Supreme Court dis­avowed its deci­sion in Alley’s case, say­ing they had mis­ap­plied Tennessee’s post-con­vic­tion DNA test­ing act. ​“The courts got it wrong in 2006 when they allowed Mr. Alley to be exe­cut­ed before test­ing the DNA,” Scheck said. ​“If Mr. Alley were alive today, he would be enti­tled to DNA test­ing under the … statute. We now have a chance to learn the truth in this case.”

Scheck was joined at the con­fer­ence by Alley’s daugh­ter April, who is execu­tor of her father’s estate; mem­bers of the DNA lit­i­ga­tion team; and death-row exonerees Ray Krone and Sabrina Butler-Smith, who both now live in Tennessee. The Innocence Project renewed efforts to obtain DNA test­ing last year, after receiv­ing a tip from law enforce­ment that a sus­pect­ed ser­i­al killer arrest­ed in an unre­lat­ed mur­der in Missouri attend­ed class­es with Lance Corporal Collins near the time of the mur­der. Speaking at the press con­fer­ence, Vanessa Potkin, the Innocence Project’s Director of Post-Conviction Litigation said, ​“It’s nev­er too late to find the truth. … We have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to get to the truth today, and that’s what we’re asking for.”

(Jim Dwyer, Her Father Was Executed for Murder. She Still Wants to Know if He Did It, New York Times, May 1, 2019; Adam Tamburin, Family of exe­cut­ed Tennessee inmate calls for DNA tests in renewed hope to ​‘find the truth’, Commercial Appeal, May 1, 2019; Akshay Pai, Was Sedley Alley wrong­ly exe­cut­ed in 2006 for the mur­der of Suzanne Marie Collins? Family insists on find­ing the truth, MEAWW, May 2, 2019; Family of Sedley Alley, Executed in 2006, Petitions Court for DNA Testing of Evidence in Tennessee Case, Innocence Project, May 1, 2019.) Read the Petition for Post-Conviction DNA Analysis filed in In re: Sedley Alley and the Application for DNA Testing, Pardon, and Exoneration of Sedley Alley sent to Gov. Bob Lee. Watch the Innocence Project’s May 1, 2019 news con­fer­ence. See Executions and Innocence.