Hey there, folks. He has been on death row for thirty six years. But in the next week, one of two things is going to happen. He's either going to get a new trial or he is going to walk out of prison. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Presents. We don't get these everyday rogue. So we're talking about a guy who's been on death row for a long time and the clock is ticking, something's going to happen.
That's right. This is one of Alabama's longest serving death row inmates, sixty three year old Michael Sockwell. Yes, he's been on death row for thirty six years. He's been on death row since nineteen ninety after he was convicted of killing a sheriff's deputy. His name was Isaiah Harris. But this is now a situation in which prosecutors, yes, have days to make a decision whether or not to
retry Michael Sockwell. And this has serious implications in terms of the prosecutorial conduct and how they seeded the jury in Michael Sockwell's case.
Let's be clear here, folks. We have seen a bunch of cases where the guilt or innocence of someone on death row is questioned. We've seen cases where they say circumstances are a little different and maybe the sentence need to be changed. That is not the conversation we're having here. No one's beating a drama and saying this man is innocent and we have evidence he needs to be off death row. What they're saying here, robe is he never got a fair trial in the first place.
Correct, And we should point out Sockwell does maintain his innocence. He says he did not commit this crime. He actually has the finger pointed at someone specifically who he says, in fact, did the killing. But you are correct. This is not an issue of guilter innocence. This is an issue of who was seated on the jury and why and a DA who apparently had a quote significant history of refusing to seat black jurors on the jury.
Big no, No, We've seen a lot of movies and actually we've seen a lot of actual trials. Lawyers get a lot of leeway and saying I don't want that juror for whatever reason. Sometimes you just get a strike. You just say nope, nope, nope, like yourself out. Sometimes you have to give a reason. You can't give a reason of they black, they gotta go right, that's not allowed.
Yes, and specifically, this DA we're talking about. Her name is Ellen Brooks, but she in this case in particular, and there are other cases that the courts have cited, she struck eighty percent of qualified black prospective jurors, and qualified being the key. There was no other reason to disqualify them. They had preconceived notions, they were against the death penalty, they knew too much about the case. They didn't think they could be unbiased. No, none of that.
Those are the reasons why you can strike a juror. You cannot strike a juror because they look like your defendant. And that's essentially what she put in her notes, that she struck a jurors specifically because he had the same he was the same race, the same sex, and the same age as the defendant.
That'd be the exact guy what went on my jury, right, and that is the exact person this prosecutor did not want. Again, you can not do that. So roads they have been fighting and fighting and fighting for this guy for years. His attorney's happened. Finally in appeals court last year last summer stepped in voted. I think the vote was two to one, but saying yeah, his rights were violated, this guy should get a new trial, or you need to
let him out of prison. Now that was last summer roadse But they gave a date and a deadline that now is it's knocking on the door.
Yeah, March eighteen. That is next Wednesday. Depending. I don't know when anyone's listening to this, but yes, they got a couple of days left to actually pursue a new trial or he's released from prison. And initially the DA's office said yeah, we're definitely going to pursue knew charges were going to retry this case. And yet silence, crickets.
Have corn, no quiet. Now are you going to go through with it?
You know? I think they have to weigh the expense and look, multiple people were convicted for this crime, not just Sockwell, including the victim's wife, who police say was the mastermind of this killing.
We've got it. There's got to be a snapped episode about this. The murder for hire is what they're saying was, Yes, the woman, the wife was behind it. She had the death penalty. Initially, I think was ended up that right ended up coming back to life in prison. But yes, she is serving for this crime. I think that is going to be his challenge robed in why this will get a new trial, because you're not just this isn't just the death penalty phase of it. We're talking about a whole new trial.
Correct.
So this is the guy you think is a cop killer, you got to retry it.
Yes, So the crime, by the way, Sheriff Sipputy Isaiah Harris, he was on his way to work and police say that he was shot in the face. This happened in nineteen eighty eight. That's how far back this goes. But he was shot in the face in a murder for higher plot that was arranged by his wife. And yes, Harris's wife was convicted. She is now serving life in prison. But she was having an affair. She claimed she was being abused by her husband and she was having an affair. Now,
Sockwell says, wasn't me, It was her lover. It was her the guy who she was having an affair with. That's who killed her husband, not me.
And that is not what courts have been ruling on. They are not listening to his guilt or isn't innocence? They are listening to whether or not he got a fair trial, and that's the only determination. So rose that. So, yes, I think everybody on death row and cell block D says they're innocent, right, But so they're not listening to that. But the Supreme Court didn't necessarily take up the case. So after the court down there ruled he should get a new trial to get out of prison, Alabama appealed
to the Supreme Court. Supreme Court essentially saying, we ain't trying to hear it. Yes, So they did not issue a ruling, They did not take up the case, and in doing so, the only decision that now stands is the one that's from that lower court. So, now, prosecutors, what you going to do? Yeah, we are literally he's waiting. Yeah, he's seven, he's been on death row for thirty six years, and he is days away from determining whether or not he's going to walk out of that place.
That's an insane situation. And you know, I actually listening or reading the Federal Appeals Court ruling, I mean they were very strong in their language talking about the misconduct that took place in seeding this jury. They said Alabama prosecutors repeatedly and purposefully rejected qualified black jurors. And this
was their their big statement that stood out. Equal justice under law requires a criminal trial free of racial discrimination in the jury selection process period, and that is why we are where we are today.
This was Alabama in the late eighties.
Yes, yes, and when they talked about and this all was detailed in this appellate court ruling. But the da Ellen Brooks and we mentioned, they said she had a significant history of striking jurors based on their racial basically if they were black. Let's just put it, say it like it is. And so they said that there were several instances of Ellen Brooks striking black jurors. The quote was Brooks purposefully struck black jurors in the cases she prosecuted. So this was not the only case.
And it's not just and it's interesting. It was uh no, that's the cow My god, Did I really just try to recite precedent of Batson, bats and versus Kentucky. You are correct that, yes, bats and versus Kentucky is the one. It is the President sett in case to where you cannot discriminate based on race when it comes to juris because not only is it a violation of that defendants right, it's actually discrimination against the jury, your discrimination against that
person for racial reasons. So this is well established and this is a major no no. And so Robes it's hard to argue with this to say, oh, he's a cop killer, just throw away the key. I mean, this is sometimes the beauty of our system. Robes that even yes, the guy convicted of being a cop killer went on trial, got the death penalty, we're determining thirty six years later, he wasn't treated fairly in the process. That there's some beauty in the system.
There somewhere Ropes that that could eventually happen for a black man in Alabama.
Yes, the problem is that it happened in the first place.
Correct. And here there's another interesting twist to this in that the jury that convicted him, they voted seven to five for life imprisonment, so they voted against the death penalty, but the judge overrode the jury's recommendation and handed down the death sentence. Anyway, by the way, that is illegal now, but it was legal up until twenty seventeen. Alabama was the last state in this country to stop that practice of a judge being able to overturn a jury's recommendation
for punishment. And so that happened to him. That couldn't happen today. If he were sentenced today, he would have gotten the life. He would have gotten life in prison, not the death compy.
It's so it's wild that that was permitted at all. The jury decides what it wants to happen, and you're saying, nope, I'm gonna do something else. That's just bizarre. And one are the others that we've covered a lot of these, a lot of death penalty cases Forbes, the other I can't remember the states, but some of them even have where it doesn't have to be unanimous to get the death penalty.
Correct, you're that it seems like when it's something that significant, it should be unanimous, just like the jury's verdict needs to be unanimous about guilt or innocence. It seems though, that same that same standard should be applied to whether or not you live or die.
Can you imagine you found guilty and the vote was seven to.
Five or something, Yeah, yeah.
That's you're mad. I did put you on the spot.
I don't know. I couldn't remember how many jurors are seated.
I can see you have the look on your face. Is it terrified?
Is it fourteen?
I can't remember the idea there. It just that seems wild as well. So, yes, that a judge could override when a jury said what they wanted to have into the man. We should start there even with this case.
All right, when we come back, we're going to tell you what the reaction was from the Sockwell camp to the Supreme Court's decision, and what may happen next. Welcome back everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ Presents. We are following a court case that is thirty six years in the making and only has a few days left for us to know what is going to happen next. We are talking about a case out of Montgomery County, Alabama, where sixty three year old Michael Sockwell has been on
death row since nineteen ninety. He was convicted for a nineteen eighty eight killing of a sheriff's deputy. It was a murder for hire. The sheriff deputy's wife is behind bars. She was convicted initially to the death penalty, but I ended up getting life in prison, and now we have a The Supreme Court decided not to listen to the State of Alabama's appeal to a lower court's ruling that said, guess what, the DA acted improperly when seeding this jury.
And this DA has a history of acting improperly. When I say improperly, she has a significant history of striking black jurors for black defendants. That's a big no no.
We've seen attorneys question potential jurors before this process. I only imagine this one. She doesn't have to ask questions. Nope, nope, nope, black black, black, bye bye bye. Like that seems they are actually saying, that's all she was doing. You don't have to I'm saying, not literally, but quite frankly, don't need to ask them questions about their background. I don't need to look at the questionnaire. That's a black person. There's
a black person. There's a black person. Don't want you on my jerry.
Yeah. And in her notes she said it, there was no denying it, that there was no other reason to not seat them, and so they were all qualified to sit on that jury based on the questions they were asked. And that's the point, and she struck. There were ten potential black durers left to be seated. She struck eight of them for no reason other than the fact that
they were black. You can't do that. And so yes, the court finally, thirty six years later, I guess this all this decision initially happened last summer in June of twenty twenty five. But they said, hey, okay, prosecution, you now have a timeline by March eighteenth. Either you start, or you retry this man, or you let him go. So Michael Sockwell either gets a new trial as of March eighteenth or he gets out of jail.
They have to they have to try him. That you have to. They have to ropes. This is a guy that Nope, they're not saying is possibly innocent. Are you really going to say, okay, that was enough years. You serve thirty six and that was enough for killing a.
Copy I agree from just from so many different points of view, they have to retry this case.
Now, remind me where's this happening?
Montgomery County, Alabama. And they said when, Yes, when, when this decision came down by the lower court, It was a federal court in June. The Montgomery County Prosecute the DA's and they said, Okay, we are absolutely going to retry this case. But they have not officially commented since the Supreme Court refused to hear the state's appeal, so we don't know. They haven't made another announcement since June of twenty twenty five as to what they're going to do.
Maybe they were banking on the fact that the Supreme Court was going to back them up and throw out the Appellate Court's decision, but that did not happen, and so now the ball is literally in their court. And Michael Sockwell's defense lawyers had this to say when the Supreme Court decided not to rule or not to look into the Appellate Court's decision, they said, we appreciate the
Supreme Court's decision. Michael has been denied his right to a fair trial for more than thirty five years, will continue to fight for his freedom.
I haven't seen we've been looking at and covering the story. I haven't seen much of a drumbeat of anybody saying he's innocent to saying he's going to get a chance to present some new evidence that something is going to change. That's not that drum beat, correct.
Well from Michael Sockwell, there is. He's claiming it was the wife's lover who actually killed the sheriff's deputy, not him.
So the guy on trial is blaming somebody else. That's a new one. I'm saying, this is not that when it's not that thing. There have been plenty where there are questions. Even Hell, we've seen some of the families of the victims come forward and defend the defendant to a certain this is nothing along those lines. But he has denied a fair trial. Thirty six later, years later, we're trying to right or wrong. The wrong shouldn't have
happened in the first place. Sure, but I mean you have to look at our system and go, Okay, this is how it's supposed to work exactly.
And look, Michael Sockwell, as you point out, might still be convicted for this crime, and almost certainly will be. But will he get the death penalty? And that's the other big question because again, the jury that was initially seated, the jury that they say now was unfairly placed. The racial makeup, I believe was ten white jurors two black jurors that they voted against the death penal. They voted for life imprisonment, and it was the judge who gave
him that death send. So at the very least, this new trial would actually be the difference between life or death. It might not be the difference between freedom and incarceration. But certainly he has a shot at he's sixty five years old, at growing old behind bars and potentially getting out. That's still on the table, on.
The table, he has three options. But yeah, you're probably right that continue to have he'll get off death row, right, he will get I will imagine death row jury already didn't want him on death row, so here we are these years later. So yes, to that point, it's significant. It's significant this, this decision or lack of one by the Supreme Court might have just saved this man's life.
Yeah, that is a very good way to put it. And we will of course continue to follow this story because yes, we are days away from getting an answer from Alabama's prosecution or Montgomery County curatorial team to see whether or not they will. I don't know how do you get a new trial. You just say we're now officially recharging or we're going to give him a new trial. I don't know what the announcement.
Is, all right. The amount of paperwork, oh my goodness, assume and things that have to be filed to get this done and a judge has to sign off on it. But they'll get it done. But this is we are days away. We are going to find out, and wrote we are not used to in cases like this. The clock is usually ticking on the execution, correct, the clock is ticking on is the governor going to step into
the Supreme Court going to step all those things? Now, it's rare that the clock is ticking because we're waiting on the prosecution to do something. Yeah, in a death row case?
Right, But we wait, all right, we wait and we will watch and we will keep you all updated. Thank you though for listening to us. As always, I made Wroteboch alongside TJ. Holmes. We will talk to you soon.