Leroy White (pic­tured) was exe­cut­ed in Alabama on January 13 despite the fact that his tri­al jury, the pros­e­cu­tion, and mem­bers of the vic­tim’s fam­i­ly had sought a dif­fer­ent sen­tence. Shortly before his exe­cu­tion, he received a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court to con­sid­er his final motion. However, near­ly three hours lat­er the stay was lift­ed and he was exe­cut­ed for the 1988 mur­der of his estranged wife, Ruby White. During the time that the stay was in place, White sat alone and was not allowed to con­fer with his attor­ney. At the time of his tri­al, the jury rec­om­mend­ed a life sen­tence, but Alabama is one of the few states in the coun­try that allow the judge to over­ride the jury and White was sen­tenced to death. The victim’s fam­i­ly and White’s daugh­ter had asked for his life to be spared, and at one point the pros­e­cu­tion had offered a plea bar­gain. One of White’s ear­li­er attor­neys, G. James Benoit, admit­ted that he allowed his client to miss a crit­i­cal appeal dead­line, short­en­ing the appeals process and expe­dit­ing his exe­cu­tion. Benoit, who took over White’s case after anoth­er mem­ber of his firm was sus­pend­ed, prac­ticed trans­ac­tion­al tax and cor­po­rate law, and had nev­er been in a court­room. He no longer prac­tices law today. Bryan Stevenson, direc­tor of Equal Justice Initiative, took up White’s case last sum­mer when the state asked the Alabama Supreme Court to set a date for his exe­cu­tion. White was sur­prised to hear that his exe­cu­tion date was approach­ing because he assumed he was still in the appeals process. In the week before his exe­cu­tion, Stevenson peti­tioned both the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court to delay White’s exe­cu­tion because of the missed appeal by his for­mer attor­ney and his fail­ure to inform White. According to Stevenson, ““The death penal­ty is not just about do peo­ple deserve to die for the crimes they are accused of, the death penal­ty is also about do we deserve to kill. If we don’t pro­vide fair tri­als, fair review pro­ce­dures, when we have exe­cu­tions that are unnec­es­sar­i­ly cru­el and dis­tress­ing, or if we have a death penal­ty that is arbi­trary or polit­i­cal or dis­crim­i­na­to­ry, then we are all implicated.”

(B. Lawson, ​“Leroy White’s last few hours con­tin­ued odd jour­ney to his exe­cu­tion,” The Huntsville Times, January 15, 2011). See Arbitrariness and Representation.

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