Nathaniel Woods is scheduled to be executed in Atmore, Alabama on March 5, 2020. Pamela Woods holds a page from the trial transcript that shows that her brother surrendered when three police officers were shot. Woods was sentenced to death for his role in the shootings. The jury voted 10-2 to recommend the death penalty. This photo was taken byKimberly Chandler.
He cradled his baby for the last time. He picked out some food. He posed for pictures with his family and they captured smiles as strained as the conversation. The person in charge said it was time.
Nathaniel Woods told his father everything would be all right. He said he loved him.
On March 5, 2020, the state of Alabama chose to be Woods' last. Nathaniel Woods had been convicted in the deaths of three police officers and had been re-christened as the Cop Killer.
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Woods did not kill anyone. When the officers were shot to death while rushing into a drug house to execute a warrant for his arrest, he was not even aware of it.
The American Civil Liberties Union argued that Woods had lured the officers to their deaths. He didn't have to prove that he killed anyone in order to get a capital murder conviction.
The Death Penalty Information Center estimates that of the 1,458 executions that took place between 1985 and 2018, 11 involved cases in which the defendants did not commit murder. Woods was a case in which the person was not involved in a violent act and was not involved in a robbery.
Kerry Spencer wrote a letter in support of Nathaniel Woods. I know this because I was the one who shot and killed all three of the officers.
The majority of the population in the city of Birmingham is black. Only two of the 12 jurors were black. The judge and two prosecutors were all white.
Alabama has a history of racial injustice and a full embrace of capital punishment. It has the highest number of death row inmates per capita and is the only state that doesn't require jury unanimity to recommend death.
The jury voted 10-2 in favor of death.
Woods is not the most sympathetic figure in the history of capital punishment, as a drug dealer who refused to show compassion led to three deaths. As jurors struggled with reading Woods' facial expression, so too does the law struggle with measures of punishment. The man who killed three officers and the man who fled are both dead.
The path to 18th Street.
The hostility between Woods and Officer Carlos Owen was separated by a screen door.
The standoff was unfolding at a bare-bones apartment in the city.
Woods worked in a drug operation run by his cousin. He was supposed to collect the money and give the drugs.
Woods was teasing his sisters at an early age. They say the family was over when their parents split up.
After the sixth grade, Woods left school to live with his father. He had a knack for electronics, as well as a knack for trouble, with his arrests for reckless driving and public drinking.
He got a job at a warehouse, but it didn't stick. He had three young children and a job selling drugs for $3,000 a day.
His work partner and friend had followed the same path. He had left school, worked at the warehouse and had young children. He snorted $350 worth of cocaine a day and was usually armed.
In April 2004, their boss, Cooper, helped set a corner aglow with gunfire during a dispute that left two people wounded. He was arrested a short time later.
Spencer would testify that life at the 18th Street apartment passed without police interruption.
The police were at the back door.
Both Curly and RoboCop are villains.
Owen was assigned to patrol the Ensley streets. Although he was a graying grandfather, everyone called him Curly because of his old hairstyle.
Officer Harley Chisholm III was a few days short of his 41st birthday and was next to Owen at the back door. His on-the-job enthusiasm, coupled with his 6-foot-4 frame and wraparound sunglasses, had earned the six-year police veteran and former Marine a nickname of his own.
The patrolling guardians of Ensley are Curly and RoboCop. Some in the neighborhood respected them, some feared them, and some, including Cooper, considered them corrupt.
Cooper claimed in an affidavit that he had paid protection money to Owen and Chisholm for years. He said that they tipped him off to the buy-and-bust operations of narcotics officers.
Cooper said that after he was arrested on attempted murder charges, the two officers raised their price to $3,000 a week. He stopped paying them for protection at that point.
The two officers were told similar stories by others who lived in Ensley. Annetta Nunn, the police chief at the time, said that neither man was ever accused of corruption.
A lot of violence.
The 18th Street apartment had a screen door standoff that day. There had been one previous encounter, if not two, but there is no question that Owen and Chisholm arrived at the apartment around 10:30 that morning to check on stolen cars, and that they got into a heated argument with Woods and Spencer.
His defenders say that Woods gave his name because he believed he had done nothing wrong.
Before the officers left the scene, they used the patrol car computer of Officer Michael Collins to run Woods' name through criminal databases. The drug dealers hid their stuff in anticipation.
Spencer said that he took a pill, drank a beer and went to sleep. A semi-automatic rifle is beside him.
Less than three hours later, the police received confirmation that Woods was wanted in nearby Fairfield on a domestic assault charge. Four police officers pulled up to the apartment.
Owen told Woods that he had an outstanding warrant for his arrest and that he needed to come outside. Woods refused.
Collins later said that Woods ran deeper into the apartment when Chisholm was summoned from the front yard to confirm the warrant. Owen and Collins followed after him.
The police drew their guns or used pepper spray, depending on the dispute. There is no doubt of the sudden explosion of violence that followed, detailed by Spencer in a cellphone video recorded from death row last year.
He said that he woke up to a commotion, looked out a window to see a police car, and then saw Woods stumbling out of the kitchen. He opened fire with his semi-automatic, killing Owen and Chisholm. Collins was hit by a bullet as he fled out the back door.
Spencer said he hit Bennett three times when he came through the front door.
Woods passed Bennett lying on the ground.
Spencer said he sprayed the patrol car with bullets to scare off Collins. He could see that Bennett was trying to grab his leg as he ran out the front door. He shot him in the head.
An anxious but determined search followed. Woods was sitting on a porch across from the apartment. He surrendered when he realized he had not killed anyone.
Judge and jury.
Alabama was staggered by the deaths of the officers. The two men were charged with causing the deaths.
Spencer was found guilty first. His lawyer raised doubts about what the police were doing at the apartment and the jury recommended life without parole rather than the death penalty.
The judge sentenced Spencer to death because Alabama allowed judges to overrule jury recommendations.
In October 2005, Woods was on trial for the same capital murder charges that Spencer had just been convicted of.
Woods' lawyers had confidence in their case, but prosecutors challenged the premise that Woods was a police-hating criminal who had planned to kill the two officers.
Woods was found guilty on all counts. The sentencing phase came after that.
Woods took the stand as the jury was about to make a decision.
Woods was asked by his lawyer, Cynthia Umstead, if he had anything to say to the families of the dead officers. I don't have anything to do with it, but if they need to take my blood, then so be it. If they are satisfied with that, that is fine.
Chris McAlpine was surprised by his response. He recalled that he was the only one who said that. I remember sitting there and saying, 'You have to be kidding me.' That is the best you could come up with, knowing what we are fixing to decide?
The jury's responsibility was felt by another juror. He asked, "What gives you the right to do this?" You are just a person. What gives you the right to tell someone else?
In 2005, almost every state required a jury to be unanimous in their recommendation for death. In the past, only Florida, Delaware and Alabama allowed for a unanimous jury recommendation of death, but now only Alabama allows it.
Deliberations were intense. The vote came down to 10 jurors in favor of the death penalty, and two jurors against, according to McAlpine.
Fight to save a life.
The William C. Holman Correctional Facility was notorious for its violence and overcrowding. The state shut down most of the prison in early 2020 but it still houses Alabama's condemned.
The family of Woods fought to have his life spared. Lawyers made a lot of arguments. There was no purchase found.
As Woods was wavering between hope and despair, he reached out to family members. He wrote poetry. He converted to Islam.
On January 30, 2020, prison officials presented Woods with a one-page document to sign. He was to be executed on March 5.
No similar letter was sent to Spencer. He was able to prolong his life by opting for death by nitrogen hypoxia. The man who killed three police officers would live if the gassing protocols are not finalized in Alabama.
Lauren Faraino, a corporate lawyer with no experience in capital murder cases, and her mother, were two unlikely advocates for Woods.
They turned Faraino's kitchen into a command center and used the media contacts of Starr's husband, Bart Starr Jr., the son of a Hall of Fame quarterback.
March 5 arrived. At about 4 p.m., Woods said his final goodbyes to his family and then vanished behind a door.
Faraino was trying to have the execution called off.
With less than an hour to go, the sister of the late Simmons returned her call. Simmons told Faraino that his brother did not kill him.
Faraino began to cry. If I can get you in touch with someone at the governor's office, would you convey that message to them?
Simmons said he would.
Faraino tried to reach Alabama with Simmons still on the line. Faraino sent the governor a statement from Simmons that said Woods was innocent and begged for mercy.
It was fleeting.
Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court granted a temporary stay about 22 minutes before the scheduled 6 pm execution. The Supreme Court had six hours to decide Woods' fate.
The governor decided that clemency for Woods was unwarranted. The Supreme Court lifted the stay a few minutes later.
Faraino sent an email to one of the lawyers who had fought for Woods' life, saying it was over. They are executing him.
Woods died at 9:01 pm. He was 43 years old. He is buried in a Muslim cemetery in Georgia which is 50 miles from the Alabama line.
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