UPDATE: Parole Board Denied Clemency on Sept. 16 and Jack Alderman was exe­cut­ed.

On September 15, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Melvin Westmoreland grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion for Jack Alderman in Georgia. Judge Westmoreland stayed the exe­cu­tion, sched­uled for Sept. 16, until Alderman receives a ​“mean­ing­ful” meet­ing with the state’s Board of Pardons. The judge stat­ed: ​“If the state’s going to impose the extreme penal­ty of death … due process of the law is nev­er more impor­tant.” Alderman was sen­tenced to death in 1975 for the mur­der of his wife a year earlier. 

The Board of Pardons had denied Alderman’s request for a hear­ing, say­ing they had enough infor­ma­tion on the case. The judge asked, ​“How hard, how dif­fi­cult would it before the state takes someone’s life, as a mat­ter of grace … for you to have this hearing?” 

Alderman has been on death row for 33 years, longer than any oth­er man in Georgia. His accom­plice, John Brown, served only 12 years for his part in the mur­der, includ­ing hit­ting the vic­tim with a cres­cent wrench and help­ing to drown her. Brown signed an affi­davit in 1999 stat­ing that there was an implied deal for sen­tenc­ing lenien­cy for his tes­ti­fy­ing against Alderman, but no deal was revealed to Alderman’s attor­neys. Five of the jurors who con­vict­ed Alderman in a retri­al in 1984 have sub­mit­ted affi­davits ask­ing for his life to be spared. Alderman’s attor­ney, Michael Siem, explains, ​“It’s a pret­ty com­pelling case for clemen­cy. Mr. Alderman is a man of faith and through­out his [near­ly] 35 years on death row has been a men­tor and a peace­mak­er. He has earned the oppor­tu­ni­ty for the board to hear from his sup­port­ers.” The Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole has yet to sched­ule Alderman’s hear­ing. Alderman’s lawyers are pre­pared for a hear­ing on Sept. 16 if the Board sched­ules it.

(B. Rankin, ​“Jack Alderman gets stay of exe­cu­tion,” The Atlanta Journal- Constitution, September 15, 2008; R. Cook, ​“Death Row Watch: Ex-jurors join plea for mer­cy,” The Atlanta Journal Constitution, September 15, 2008). See also Arbitrariness and Clemency.

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