In 2020, a federal court ruled that Gavin's court-appointed lawyers were ineffective.
Keith Edmund Gavin was put to death by the State of Alabama on July 18.
Although he was convicted by a jury of his peers for fatally shooting William Clayton Jr, a delivery driver, during a robbery attempt in 1998, questions remained about Gavin’s representation during his trial. Gavin attempted a last resort handwritten appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to stay his execution, but it was rejected without comment nearly an hour before his execution.
According to the Equal Justice Initiative, in 2020 a federal court ruled that Gavin’s court appointed lawyers were ineffective and thus violated his right to counsel, ruling that he deserved to get a new sentencing trial on that basis under the Constitution. However, upon appeal, this ruling was overturned.
According to the EJI, “The Constitution guarantees effective assistance of counsel, which means that defense lawyers representing a person facing the death penalty are expected to investigate and present evidence demonstrating why the jury should reject the death penalty and impose a life sentence.”
The Associated Press reports, Gavin was convicted in 1998 of capital murder on a 10-2 vote, which in most states, except for Florida and Alabama, would not suffice to send someone to be executed. His lawyers, U.S. District Judge Karon O. Bowdre ruled, failed to present evidence of Gavin’s traumatic and abusive childhood, which could have persuaded the jury to sentence him to life in prison instead of death.
Activists delivered a petition to Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey and asked her to grant clemency to Gavin on July 17, arguing that his trial may not have been fair and that the State of Alabama was going in the wrong direction regarding executions in the United States.
“In 2020, a federal judge ruled that Gavin’s legal representation during sentencing was constitutionally inadequate,” the petition read. “However, the Court of Appeals reversed this decision in 2022. International legal standards require effective legal assistance at all stages for those facing the death penalty. This standard was not met in Gavin’s case.”
The petition continued, “The vast majority of states with capital punishment continue on a downward trend of executions, Alabama has continued to go against trend by carrying on with scheduled execution dates. Additionally, Alabama has repeatedly shown that it is not capable of carrying out executions, as it is botching its lethal injection process—amounting to cruel punishment and the torture of prisoners.”
According to Bowdre’s ruling, Gavin’s lawyers were “totally unprepared for the penalty phase” and the two witnesses they called, Gavin’s mother and a minister who did not know Gavin prior to his arrest, were unprepared to testify before the court.
On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit decided that a federal court had to adhere to the ruling of Alabama’s state court, even if that ruling was incorrect. According to the EJI, Alabama’s criminal justice system makes it possible for people who face the death penalty to receive inadequate representation due to low compensation rates for capital offense attorneys and no statewide public defender system. This, the organization believes, results in Alabama leading the nation in death sentencing per capita, and execution rates.
The 64-year-old Gavin, a Muslim, also sued the Alabama Department of Corrections to stop them from conducting an autopsy on his body after he was executed, claiming that it would violate his faith. The DOC agreed to Gavin’s request, and he subsequently withdrew the suit. Alabama, which currently leads the country in executions in 2024, plans to add one more to its tally when it executes Alan Eugene Miller in September.
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