Execution of Brian Keith Baldwin must be stopped
June 18, 1999
Recently discovered evidence and eyewitness testimony shows that Brian Keith Baldwin, who faces imminent death in Alabama’s electric chair, is innocent of the capital murder charge he was convicted of in 1977. Some of the new evidence was presented before Judge Braxton Kittrell in Mobile, Alabama, in a brief court hearing on Monday, June 14. The hearing was hastily conducted and ended abruptly by Judge Kittrell before attorneys were able to present all the evidence they had assembled. Judge Kittrell also bowed to objections by the Alabama Attorney General’s office in refusing to grant a court order allowing attorneys to have a polygraph test administered by the former chief polygraph expert for the FBI in the Southeast.
Today, Judge Kittrell – despite not having heard the full presentation of evidence -- denied Mr. Baldwin’s petition for reconsideration of his conviction. While Mr. Baldwin’s attorneys will appeal this ruling, there is no certainty that higher courts will issue a stay of execution, now scheduled for 12:01 June 18 (midnight Thursday evening, June 17).
Mr. Baldwin, a 40-year-old African-American, was convicted in the 1977 murder and robbery of a young white woman in Monroe County, Alabama. A co-defendant, Edward Horsley, also African-American and a teenager at the time of the murder, was tried separately and was executed in 1996.
Appeals to stop the execution of an innocent man are coming from people across Alabama and the U.S., as well as from Europe. President Jimmy Carter, in a letter to Gov. Don Siegelman, urged that the execution be stopped, saying that there are clear reasons to question his culpability in the murder for which another person was executed a few years ago, and that there is no doubt that racial prejudice was a significant factor both in his trial and in his death sentencing.
Among points made in Brian Baldwin’s appeal for justice are:
1. The only evidence presented against him at trial was an alleged “confession,” which he on the stand denied was voluntary. Witnesses, including a former law enforcement officer, have given statements supporting Mr. Baldwin’s claim that the confession was coerced by beatings.
2. The person who actually committed the murder wrote a statement in 1985 (authenticated by a handwriting expert) admitting that he alone committed the murder. Other evidence of innocence: a forensics report showing blood stains on Mr. Horsley’s clothing but not on Mr. Baldwin’s; and medical expert testimony that wounds on the victim were inflicted by a left-handed person. Horsley was left-handed. Mr. Baldwin is right-handed.
3. The trial process was extremely race-biased: An African-American tried by a white judge, white prosecutor, and all-white jury (all African-Americans being struck from the jury pool). Mr. Baldwin was called boy in open court, and called a savage in the prosecution’s closing. Under current law no conviction or sentence of death under these circumstances would be approved on appeal. Both the judge and the prosecutor were later cited by an Alabama court for practicing intentional racial discrimination during this time.
4. Initial appeals of the improper conviction and sentence were ruled on -- and denied -- by the same judge who presided over the trial. Higher courts simply accepted this judge’s ruling on his own practice. A complete trial record was not made available to Mr. Baldwin’s attorneys during the appeals process. Tapes of the trial that the state had denied the existence of were only recently discovered and transcribed. To date, Mr. Baldwin has been effectively prevented from presenting a full defense.
###