Tennessee Criminal Appeals Court Hears Appeal for Posthumous DNA Testing in Sedley Alley Case

Lawyers for the daugh­ter of a man exe­cut­ed by Tennessee have asked a state appeals court to per­mit DNA test­ing that could prove his innocence.

In a vir­tu­al hear­ing before the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals on February 3, 2021 (see pic­ture), for­mer U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement urged the court to order DNA test­ing that, he argued, could exon­er­ate Sedley Alley. Alley, who was exe­cut­ed in 2006, had been con­vict­ed of rape and mur­der in the death of 19-year-old Marine Lance Cpl. Suzanne Collins in a park near a Marine base in Millington, Tennessee in 1985. 

With the assis­tance of the Innocence Project, Alley’s daugh­ter April had peti­tioned the Shelby County Criminal Court in 2019 under the Tennessee DNA Analysis request­ing DNA test­ing of phys­i­cal evi­dence in the case. She made the request on behalf of her father’s estate after the Innocence Project had received a tip from law enforce­ment that a sus­pect­ed ser­i­al killer arrest­ed in an unre­lat­ed mur­der had attend­ed class­es with Lance Corporal Collins near the time of her mur­der. The coun­ty court dis­missed April Alley’s peti­tion, say­ing the estate was not a ​“per­son” under Tennessee law and there­fore lacked stand­ing to seek the testing.

Sedley Alley was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death on the strength of a con­fes­sion he con­sis­tent­ly main­tained had been coerced. The lawyers appoint­ed to rep­re­sent him at tri­al failed to inves­ti­gate glar­ing incon­sis­ten­cies between the phys­i­cal evi­dence and his con­fes­sion. 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. His appeal lawyers unsuc­cess­ful­ly attempt­ed to obtain test­ing under the DNA law. After his exe­cu­tion, the Tennessee Supreme Court repu­di­at­ed that deci­sion, say­ing it had been wrongly decided.

Clement told the appeals court that ​“the pur­pose of Tennessee’s DNA Analysis Act is to exon­er­ate the inno­cent and to iden­ti­fy the true per­pe­tra­tors of an offense.” Those pur­pos­es, ​“con­tin­ue to be served even after a per­son has served his sen­tence or been exe­cut­ed,” Clement argued.

Senior Assistant Attorney General Andrew Coulam argued that April Alley had no stand­ing to seek DNA test­ing, say­ing that “[a] pro­bate estate is not a per­son, and cer­tain­ly not a per­son con­vict­ed of a crime,” as required by the DNA statute. Saying that Sedley Alley had received due process pri­or to being exe­cut­ed, he told the court, “[a]t some point this must end.” Victims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers should not have to receive a call ​“12 or 13 years after the death of the defen­dant to be told, ​‘It’s start­ed again,’” he argued.

Clement strong­ly con­test­ed Coulam’s argu­ment, say­ing the notion that Alley ​“got due process in a case where it is now admit­ted by both par­ties that the court applied the wrong legal stan­dard is sim­ply not a fair argu­ment. … There was no fair hear­ing in that case,” Clement said.

He also reject­ed the argu­ment that Collins’ fam­i­ly ben­e­fit­ted by deny­ing DNA test­ing that could lead to the truth about who mur­dered her. ​“I have as much sym­pa­thy for the vic­tims of a crime as imag­in­able,” Clement said, ​“but [the victim’s] inter­ests are not served if the wrong per­son has been exe­cut­ed for the crime and the actu­al per­pe­tra­tor is at large.”

Clement, who served in the admin­is­tra­tion of for­mer President George W. Bush, vol­un­teered his legal ser­vices to Alley and the Innocence Project in the case.