Ivana Hrynkiw

2 weeks ago | al.com | Ivana Hrynkiw

This post will be updated as the day unfolds. Live updates will be added at the top of this story. Alabama is set to execute a man Thursday evening after he volunteered to die for his crimes. James Osgood is set to be executed at 6 p.m. at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, just miles from the Florida state line. He will be put to death using the state’s three-drug lethal injection method, after he declined to choose death by nitrogen gas when Alabama allowed that swap in 2018.

3 weeks ago | al.com | Ivana Hrynkiw

In a handwritten letter, Robin Alford begged for help. Her son, Clinton Willard Bridges, died last year at one of Alabama’s maximum-security prisons. “When my son died so sudden, a part of me died with him. I will never be ok,” she wrote. Bridges was locked up at St. Clair Correctional Facility for property crimes, his mother said. They talked regularly during his 14 years in prison, but in early September, the calls stopped coming in. And they didn’t start again.

4 weeks ago | al.com | Ivana Hrynkiw

Robbie Deason last talked to his 33-year-old son the day before the presidential election, when his son called from a phone at a south Alabama prison. Before the ballots had been cast, his son was dead. And he still doesn’t know why. Or how. Or even exactly when. “She notified me about his death like she was telling me to pick up my dry cleaners,” said Deason, recalling his conversation with a captain from the prison.

2 months ago | al.com | Ivana Hrynkiw

Robin Dion “Rocky” Myers called his lawyer a liar. “I kind of regretted it as soon as I said it,” Myers told AL.com through the phone. “I kind of slapped myself.” The remark came as he was stunned to learn that Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey had decided to spare his life on Feb. 28, making him the first man to have his death sentence commuted in Alabama in modern history. Myers, 63, was set to die this spring by inhaling pure nitrogen gas at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.

2 months ago | al.com | Ivana Hrynkiw

A group of former prosecutors has filed a brief urging a Jefferson County judge to grant a new trial for Alabama Death Row inmate Toforest Johnson. “Given that both the current Jefferson County District Attorney and the original line prosecutor recommend a new trial for Mr. Johnson, this Court should grant the relief they request,” said the brief, which was signed by 10 former state and federal prosecutors, including former Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley and former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones.