Tennessee Court to Decide Whether to Test DNA that Could Exonerate Man Executed in 2006

A Shelby County (Memphis) judge has heard argu­ment and will rule on November 18, 2019 whether to allow DNA test­ing in a case that could show whether the state of Tennessee exe­cut­ed an inno­cent man in June of 2006. On October 14, lawyers from the Innocence Project, rep­re­sent­ing the estate of Sedley Alley (pic­tured) and his daugh­ter, April Alley, urged Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan to release for DNA test­ing phys­i­cal evi­dence that they believe will exon­er­ate Sedley Alley and might iden­ti­fy the per­son who raped and mur­dered Lance Corporal Suzanne Collins in 1985.

“The pri­ma­ry rea­son we are here is that April Alley wants to know the truth,” Innocence Project co-founder Barry Scheck told the court. ​“She has the courage to seek the truth here, and DNA test­ing can … pro­vide that truth.”

Alley ini­tial­ly con­fessed to hav­ing mur­dered Collins, but lat­er insist­ed that the con­fes­sion — which did not match the details of the crime scene or autop­sy — had been coerced. An eye­wit­ness descrip­tion of a man seen with Collins in the vicin­i­ty of the mur­der did not match Alley’s appear­ance. 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. ​“This has all the ear­marks of a false con­fes­sion,” Scheck said. ​“But we need not debate it, because DNA evi­dence can pro­vide us an answer.”

After dis­cov­er­ing the defects in the prosecution’s case, Alley’s clemen­cy lawyers asked in 2006 for DNA test­ing of the cloth­ing and the mur­der weapon. The Tennessee Board of Parole agreed that test­ing should be done and rec­om­mend­ed to then-Governor Phil Bredesen that he 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. Alley was exe­cut­ed on June 28, 2006, with­out the evi­dence hav­ing been sub­ject­ed to DNA analysis.

Five years lat­er, the Tennessee Supreme Court dis­avowed its deci­sion in Alley’s case, admit­ting it had mis­ap­plied Tennessee’s post-con­vic­tion DNA test­ing act. On April 30, April Alley filed a peti­tion in state court seek­ing test­ing ​“of any and all remain­ing evi­dence” in her father’s case. ​“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.”

Innocence Project lawyers have sug­gest­ed that a man named Thomas Bruce — who was accused of mur­der­ing a woman and sex­u­al­ly assault­ing two oth­ers in 2018 — may be respon­si­ble for the mur­der of Collins. ​“Some inves­ti­ga­tors had been look­ing into [Bruce’s] past and dis­cov­ered he had been attend­ing avion­ics train­ing school in Millington, Tennessee, and had been attend­ing class­es dur­ing the same peri­od of time as the vic­tim in this case, Suzanne Collins,” Scheck said. ​“And there was some sus­pi­cion per­haps that he was a serial killer.”

April Alley’s lawyers have also sub­mit­ted an appli­ca­tion for DNA test­ing to cur­rent Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, with a request for a posthu­mous par­don if the evi­dence exon­er­ates her father. ​“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.” 

Family mem­bers of Cameron Todd Willingham — an inno­cent man exe­cut­ed in Texas in 2004 — sup­port Alley’s peti­tion to have the DNA tested.