Martin Luther King III on effort to stop execution of death row inmate in Alabama
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s son is calling on Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to halt the execution of Nathaniel Woods, who was convicted in 2005 of the shooting deaths of three police officers.
The family of death row inmate Nathaniel Woods Jr. is pleading with Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to give him more time, calling the sentence a "modern-day lynching," just hours before he is due to be executed.
Woods, 44, is set to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Thursday for his role in the killing of three Birmingham police officers in 2004.
Woods didn't pull the trigger to shoot any of the officers or plot to kill the officers, his attorneys argue, and his sister, Pamela Woods, said there is evidence of witness and evidence tampering and use of improper tactics in the case.
"It's a modern-day lynching," she told Newsweek. "We're really upset about it because the attorney general knows that my brother is innocent but for some reason, he wants to lynch a black man. They don't care about the facts of the case."
MARTIN LUTHER KING'S SON ASKS ALABAMA GOV. KAY IVEY TO HALT CONVICTED COP KILLER'S EXECUTION
This undated photo from the Alabama Department of Corrections shows Nathaniel Woods, who is scheduled to be executed on Thursday, March 5, 2020. (Alabama Department of Corrections via AP)
Wednesday afternoon on the steps of the state Capitol, she declared: "He's 100 percent innocent. Let him go, or give us time to have the courts review his case."
A federal judge rejected his last-minute request for a stay of execution Monday, the Birmingham News reported.
Kim Kardashian West, on the heels of meeting with President Trump, along with three women recently commuted by the president who were inmates with Alice Marie Johnson, tweeted about Woods' case, asking her millions of followers to "join the broad coalition...urging [Ivey] and [Attorney General Steve Marshall] to stay Nate's execution."
Woods was sentenced to death for the 2004 murders of Birmingham officers Carlos Owen, Harley A. Chisholm III and Charles R. Bennett, who were shot to death as they were serving a warrant. Woods was in the apartment when the officers were killed by another man, Kerry Spencer, who is awaiting execution at a later date.
Spencer wrote a letter, obtained by Fox News Thursday, saying Woods is "100% innocent" and saying he was "unjustly" charged, tried and convicted.
Kerry Spencer, who admitted to killing three police officers, wrote a letter saying Nathaniel Woods, who is on death row, is "100% innocent" and was "unjustly" charged, tried and convicted.
"I know this to be a fact because I'm the person that shot and killed all three of the officers that Nathaniel was subsequently charged and convicted of murdering.
Martin Luther King III, who wrote a letter obtained by Fox News to Ivey after more than 85,000 signed a Change.org petition, said he sought to speak to Ivey on the phone about the case, but the request was denied.
FILE - In this March 4, 2019, file photo, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey speaks at a news conference in Beauregard, Ala. (AP Photo/Vasha Hunt, File)
“Are you willing to allow a potentially innocent man to be executed?” King wrote.
King said Woods never had a chance at a fair trial and was convicted as an accomplice despite the fact that Spencer has always maintained that he acted alone.
“So before you allow the execution of Nathaniel Woods, I urge you to grant him a reprieve,” King wrote. “We must allow time to accurately review the new evidence.
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“In closing, my father said, ‘injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,’ and so I pray that God grants you the courage to do the right thing: to delay his execution,” he said.
Fox News' Robert Gearty contributed to this report.
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