This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

An attorney has said an Alabama death row inmate who was seeking to overturn his murder conviction has died.

Alabama death row inmate says state is ignoring his concerns over conviction Read more

Attorney Cissy Jackson said Donnis Musgrove died on Wednesday night at the Donaldson correctional facility in Bessemer, Alabama. Jackson said Musgrove was suffering from lung cancer.

“It was a privilege to know and represent Donnis,” Jackson said in an emailed statement. “My husband and I have been working for his release since 1997, and we are so sorry that he did not live to be exonerated.”

Musgrove, 67, was sentenced to die for the gunshot killing of Coy Eugene Barron in 1986.

However, he steadfastly maintained his innocence, and his attorneys contended the prosecution falsified the evidence against him, including witness statements and a shell casing that was used to link him to the slaying.

The attorney general’s office previously has declined to comment on Musgrove’s legal arguments.

Musgrove was trying to become the third inmate freed from Alabama’s death row since April. Two other men were released after winning appeals. One, Anthony Ray Hinton, was tried by the same Jefferson County prosecutor and judge who handled Musgrove’s case. The same ballistics expert was involved in each case.

Musgrove contended that the evidence of wrongdoing in his case was more extensive than in the case against Hinton.

The state had argued that rules prohibited Musgrove from making new claims about being innocent and barred him from questioning evidence used in his trial, but prosecutors didn’t directly address his arguments contending he was wrongfully convicted based on bogus evidence conjured up by prosecutors and police.

In August, his defense asked the judge to rule quickly because of his illness and his hospitalisation, in grave condition.



“We would love to get him out of prison,” Jackson said then, “so he could have some peace after being wrongfully imprisoned for so many years.”