Black man once sentenced to death for Alabama murder learns lawyer defended KKK, fights for freedom: news

Rocky Myers Fights for Freedom After Discovering Defense Lawyer Had Deep Ku Klux Klan Ties

Robin “Rocky” Myers, a Black man who spent decades on Alabama’s death row, is waging a renewed legal battle for his exoneration and release after uncovering that his court-appointed defense attorney had documented ties to the Ku Klux Klan.

Myers was convicted in the 1991 murder of his white neighbor, Ludie Mae Tucker, in Decatur, Alabama. While a jury initially recommended a sentence of life imprisonment without parole, a trial judge overrode the jury’s verdict to impose a death sentencea controversial judicial practice later outlawed by Alabama lawmakers.

Recent legal filings by Myers’ defense team revealed that his court-appointed trial lawyer, John Mays, had actively defended the United Klans of America and participated in Klan events before taking on Myers’ capital murder trial. Myers’ attorneys argue that this severe, undisclosed conflict of interest deprived him of his constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel and a fair trial.

Beyond the attorney’s white supremacist affiliations, Myers’ ongoing appeals highlight significant evidentiary vulnerabilities in the original prosecution. No physical or forensic evidence connected Myers to the crime scene, and critical testimony from key prosecution witnesses was later recanted or exposed as coerced. In addition, Myers lives with an intellectual disability, which raises serious federal constitutional protections against execution under longstanding Supreme Court precedent.

After over three decades behind bars, Myers’ legal advocates are pushing state and federal courts to overturn the wrongful conviction, arguing that racial prejudice and compromised representation undermined the integrity of the judicial process.