Alabama has set a January execution date for an inmate convicted in the 1996 shotgun killing of a man who towed his car after it broke down.
The Alabama Supreme Court on Thursday set a January 27 lethal injection date for Matthew Reeves. Reeves was sentenced to death for the November 27, 1996 murder of Willie Johnson in Dallas County, Alabama.
In earlier court filings, Reeves’ attorneys have argued he has an IQ in the 60s and that his trial counsel failed to do enough to show he is intellectually disabled and should therefore be spared a death sentence.
In July, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed an 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals finding that said that a state court had correctly rejected claims that Reeves had ineffective counsel at trial because they did not hire a neuropsychologist to present evidence that he is intellectually disabled. The decision was issued as an unsigned 6-3 opinion.
Prosecutors said on the day of the slaying that Reeves, then 18, had gone with friends looking for people to rob, but their car broke down. Johnson came by in his pickup truck and offered to give them a ride and tow their car to Reeves’ house. Prosecutors said Reeves, who was riding in the bed of the truck, stuck a shotgun through the rear window of the cab and fatally shot Johnson in the neck.
“In payment for this act of kindness, Reeves murdered Johnson, stole his money, and mocked his dying spasms,” justices wrote in the majority opinion in July.
The trial judge sentenced Reeves to death on the recommendation of the jury.
Defense lawyers at Reeves’ trial had funds to hire a neuropsychologist, Dr. John Goff, but ultimately did not do so.
At a hearing on his post-conviction appeal in state court, Goff testified he believed Reeves was intellectually disabled and that Reeves’ IQ score should be adjusted down into the 60s.
A state expert disputed that and pointed to the money that Reeves made from dealing drugs.
Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
