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Thread: Judith Ann Neelley - Alabama

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    Judith Ann Neelley - Alabama




    Janice Kay Chatman was tortured, raped and murdered in October 1982.





    THE JUDITH NEELLEY CASE


    In the fall of 1979, 26-year-old Alvin Howard Neelley fell head over heals for 15-year-old Judith Ann Adams, the troubled, third child of a large family from Tennessee.

    No stranger to trouble himself, Alvin had been committing petty crimes and stealing cars, during his first marriage.

    But after leaving his wife, he met Judith Ann and they immediately eloped. The two began a life of crime together, committing armed robberies and traveling across the country.

    They were eventually caught and incarcerated in Georgia – while Judith Ann was pregnant with twins. Released shortly before her husband, she supported her two children until he had finished serving his sentence.

    The couple eventually returned to armed robbery … but then their crimes took a sick turn.

    On September 10, 1982, Judith Ann went to a mall in search of a victim. She found 13-year-old Lisa Millican and somehow convinced the girl to join her and Alvin at a motel. Once Lisa got to the room, the couple tortured her. They eventually pumped her body full of liquid drain cleaner, and when she didn’t die, they shot her.

    A few days later, Judith abducted a young, engaged couple, under the pretense of inviting them to a party. Instead, Judith lured them into the woods where Alvin was waiting. The criminals shot John Hancock and left him for dead, then they tortured and murdered his fiancée in the same hotel room, where they had killed Lisa.

    By some miracle, John lived. And he reported the murder to the police.

    Five days later, Judith was arrested and charged with murder. After further investigation, authorities connected her to another crime: She had attacked employees at the youth detention center, where she stayed after her first arrest.

    Though both Judith and Alvin were sent to prison, Judith was portrayed as the one who orchestrated the killings. Alvin died while in prison, and Judith – at the time, the youngest woman ever sentenced to the death penalty – is still in prison to this day.

    http://www.the-line-up.com/media/tee...-neelley-case/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Judge rules Judith Ann Neelley waited too late to challenge state law

    By Mike Cason
    AL.com

    A federal judge ruled today that convicted killer Judith Ann Neelley waited too long to challenge the constitutionality of a state law barring her from parole eligibility.

    U.S. District Judge W. Keith Watkins ruled that Neelley was aware of her potential claim no later than 2009, and because she did not file suit until 2014, the two-year statute of limitations has expired.

    Because of that, Watkins did not rule on the merits of Neelley's claim, which is that the state law was an unconstitutional ex post facto law and bill of attainder because the Legislature specifically targeted her.

    Neelley's lawyer, Barry Ragsdale, said the decision would be appealed.

    "We are obviously disappointed with the result, but it is important to remember that Judge Watkins did not find that this ex post facto statute was even remotely constitutional, only that Ms. Neelley should have complained about it in 2003, when the law was first enacted," Ragsdale said in a statement.

    Neelley's crimes were notoriously vicious, but Gov. Fob James commuted her death sentence to life in 1999 as one of his final acts as governor.

    No other death row inmate in Alabama has had their sentence commuted since 1962. She is at Julia Tutwiler Prison.

    Neelley was convicted of capital murder in the 1982 slaying of 13-year-old Lisa Ann Millican. Neelley and her husband, Alvin Neelley, abducted the girl from a Georgia shopping mall.

    Testimony revealed the child was raped and that Judith Neelley injected her with drain cleaner, shot her and shoved her into Little River Canyon in northeast Alabama.

    A DeKalb County jury recommended life without parole for Neelley, but the judge sentenced her to the electric chair.

    On Jan. 15, 1999, James commuted her sentence to life imprisonment but did not specify whether that meant life without the possibility of parole.

    James later said he assumed she would not be eligible for parole.

    But state law at the time said that any inmate whose death sentence was commuted to life could not be considered for parole for 15 years. An attorney general's opinion advised the Pardons and Paroles Board that Neelley would be eligible in 2014.

    The Legislature intervened, passing a law in 2003 that said prisoners whose death sentences are commuted by the governor are not eligible for parole.

    Lawmakers made the law retroactive to September 1999, a few months before James commuted Neelley's sentence.

    Because of the 2003 law, the attorney general's office advised the Pardons and Paroles Board in 2014 that Neelley was not eligible for parole.

    That prompted her to file the lawsuit, alleging the law was unconstitutional.

    In his 29-page opinion today, Watkins did not address the merits of her claims because he said it was clear that Neelley was aware of the law and how it would affect her as early as 2003.

    Neelley's lawyer, Ragsdale, said, "It is strange but true that even basic constitutional rights have a statute of limitations. We certainly respect Judge Watkins' opinion, but this case was always headed to the appellate courts."

    Neelley also pleaded guilty to the murder of 22-year-old Janice Chatman of Rome, Ga., and agreed to testify against her husband. Alvin Neelley died in prison in Georgia in 2005.

    http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/201...rt_river_index
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    December 20, 2016

    Judith Ann Neelley seeks chance of parole before federal appeals court

    By Kent Faulk
    AL.com

    Judith Ann Neelley, convicted in the 1982 brutal slaying of a 13-year-old girl in DeKalb County, is still fighting to get a chance at being paroled one day.

    Neelley's attorney last week argued before the U.S. 11thCircuit Court of Appeals that she should be given a chance a parole despite an Alabama law enacted in 2003 aimed at keeping that from happening.

    A federal judge had ruled that Neelley's 2014 lawsuit challenging that state law - Act 2003-300 - was filed too late.

    "We continue to believe that the Legislature and the State Parole Board acted unconstitutionally in retroactively denying Ms. Neelley's eligibility for parole and that the Judge erroneously found that her claims were filed too late," Barry Ragsdale, an attorney for Neelley stated in an email to AL.com after his arguments last week before the 11th Circuit. "We expect the Eleventh Circuit to correct the Judge's legal error and send this case back to the District Court with instructions to decide the merits of our constitutional claims."

    Neelley and her attorneys are now waiting for the 11th Circuit's ruling.

    The Parole Board has argued in a brief to the 11th Circuit that Neelley was too late in filing her lawsuit.

    "Under the applicable statute of limitations, Neelley was required to bring her claims within two years after learning of her asserted injury," according to a brief filed by the Alabama Attorney General's Office, which represents the parole board. "Neelley had heard and read about Act 2003-300 by October 2003, but she did not challenge it on ex post facto or bill of attainder grounds until April 1, 2014--more than ten years later."

    Neelley was convicted in the 1982 slaying of 13-year-old Lisa Ann Millican.

    The parole board's brief described the crime this way:

    Neelley in late September 1982 kidnapped Lisa from the Riverbend Mall in Rome, Georgia, and took her to a motel room for her husband Alvin to rape. Over the next several days, Alvin raped Lisa four times, with Neelley assisting as needed by beating her and handcuffing her to the bed to prevent an escape. When the couple was done, Neelley took Lisa to Little River Canyon outside Fort Payne where Neelley injected Lisa six times with liquid drain cleaner in a botched attempt to kill her. After that didn't work, Neelley led Lisa to the rim of the gorge. Over Lisa's pleas to go home, Neelley shot Lisa in the back and then shoved her into the canyon.

    A jury recommended Judith Neelley serve a sentence of life imprisonment without parole but the judge instead imposed a death sentence.

    As Alabama Gov. Fob James was about to leave office he commuted Neelley's death sentence on Jan. 15, 1999 to a life sentence.

    Under Alabama law a person with a life sentence could be eligible for parole after serving 15 years. Neelley had already served more than 15 years by the time of the commutation so she sought parole.

    The parole board denied the request saying they interpreted the 15 years to begin at the time of the commutation, not at her conviction.

    A court sided with the parole board after a legal fight.

    To address the possibility that Neelley could one day be paroled, the Alabama Legislature enacted the 2003 law that stated any person who was originally sentenced to death shall not be eligible for parole. The legislature also made the law retroactive to September 1998 to include Neelley's pardon.

    Alvin Neelley was convicted in the death of a woman in Georgia and died while in prison there in 2005.

    http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/in...eks_chanc.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  4. #4
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    JUDGE SAYS LAW BLOCKING KILLER'S PAROLE UNCONSTITUTIONAL

    A woman originally sentenced to die for the 1982 slaying of a 13-year-old Georgia girl in north Alabama has won a legal battle in her fight to one day get a chance at parole.

    MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A woman originally sentenced to die for the 1982 slaying of a 13-year-old Georgia girl in north Alabama has won a legal battle in her fight to one day get a chance at parole.

    A federal judge ruled Friday that an Alabama law, passed to block Judith Ann Neelley from getting parole after her death sentence was commuted, was unconstitutional.

    Alabama Gov. Fob James on his last day in office in 1999 commuted Neelley's death sentence to life imprisonment. In response, lawmakers in 2003 passed a law that death row inmates who had their sentences commuted "shall not be eligible for a parole." Neelley filed a lawsuit challenging the statute and its retroactive application to her case.

    U.S. District Judge Keith Watkins ruled Friday that the measure was unconstitutional and lawmakers could not retroactively increase her punishment.

    "The Alabama Legislature may have disagreed with Governor James's decision to commute Ms. Neelley's sentence to life with the possibility of parole, or perhaps it thought Governor James meant to commute her sentence to life without the possibility of parole. But the Alabama Legislature could not increase her punishment after her death sentence was commuted," Watkins wrote.

    Neelley's attorney, Barry Ragsdale, said he was pleased with the decision but it was, "more importantly a victory for the Constitution."

    He said Neelley holds no illusions that she will be paroled in the immediate future.

    Attorney General Steve Marshall's office is reviewing the decision and declined to comment, a spokeswoman wrote in an email.

    Neelley was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to die for killing 13-year-old Lisa Ann Millican.

    According to court documents, Neelley kidnapped Millican from a shopping mall for her husband to rape. Neelley said she was acting on her husband's instructions when she injected Millican multiple times with drain cleaner in a botched attempt to kill her.

    When the girl didn't immediately die, Millican was shot and pushed into a canyon in northeastern Alabama.

    http://www.wtva.com/content/state/Ju...3.html?ref=793

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    Senior Member CnCP Addict one_two_bomb's Avatar
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    Looney toon judge Watkins is at it again! This filthy murderous beast should have been put to death. I hope the parole board has enough sense to keep it locked up forever.
    Last edited by one_two_bomb; 04-03-2018 at 07:29 PM.

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    Senior Member Frequent Poster Ted's Avatar
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    Watkins will force Auburn Uni to host Richard Spencer, but he’ll still try to block brutish murderers from justice, even after, for example, their executions are approved by SCOTUS on the night of the execution. What a wonderful man.

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    The real disgrace here is that Fob James commuted it, almost solely because she is female. It is my guess that the text of the law, and past rulings, tied the court's hands on this case.
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

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    Senior Member CnCP Addict one_two_bomb's Avatar
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    Executive clemency needs to be abolished in DP cases. It is nothing but a gross abuse of power.

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    Senior Member CnCP Addict one_two_bomb's Avatar
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    Convicted child killer Judith Ann Neelley set for parole hearing May 23

    Judith Ann Neelley, originally sentenced to die for the 1982 brutal slaying of a 13-year-old Lisa Ann Millican in DeKalb County is now set for a possible shot at freedom next month.

    A parole hearing for Neelley has been set for May 23 in Montgomery. Millican's family is trying to organize protests to urge the board to deny parole.

    It has been 35 years since Neelley was arrested in Millican's brutal slaying.

    "We are both saddened, disheartened and angry at the prospect of this monster ever getting paroled. We will be at that hearing speaking out against this injustice!" said Cassie Nicole Millican, speaking for Lisa's family. "I would like to implore people to write letters and protest against this potential travesty."

    Last month, Neelley won her legal fight for a chance at parole when the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unconstitutional a 2003 retroactive law enacted to prevent her parole.

    As Alabama Gov. Fob James was about to leave office he commuted Neelley's death sentence on Jan. 15, 1999 to a life sentence. He was unclear whether the sentence was commuted to life with or life without the chance of parole.

    He later claimed he intended to commute the sentence to life without parole, but the order did not specify.

    ames, however, told The Post, a Cherokee county newspaper that when he commuted the sentence he believed that there would be no possibility of parole for Neelley.

    The appeals court reversed U.S. District Court Judge Keith Watkins' ruling that Neelley's 2014 lawsuit challenging the state law--Act 2003-300--was filed too late under the statute of limitations.

    The appeals court said in its March opinion that the 2003 Act did not apply to Neelley because the retroactivity clause went back to 1998 and she committed her crime in 1982.

    The crime

    Neelley in late September 1982 kidnapped Lisa from the Riverbend Mall in Rome, Georgia, and took her to a motel room for her husband Alvin to rape. Over the next several days, Alvin raped Lisa four times, with Neelley assisting as needed by beating her and handcuffing her to the bed to prevent an escape. When the couple was done, Neelley took Lisa to Little River Canyon outside Fort Payne where Neelley injected Lisa six times with liquid drain cleaner in a botched attempt to kill her. After that didn't work, Neelley led Lisa to the rim of the gorge. Over Lisa's pleas to go home, Neelley shot Lisa in the back and then shoved her into the canyon.

    A jury recommended Judith Neelley serve a sentence of life imprisonment without parole but the judge instead imposed a death sentence.

    As Alabama Gov. Job. James was about to leave office he commuted Neelley's death sentence on Jan. 15, 1999.

    Alabama law says a person with a life sentence could be eligible for parole after serving 15 y ears. Neelley had already served more than 15 years by the time of commutation so she sought parole.

    Alvin Neelley was convicted in the death of a woman in Georgia and died while in prison there in 2005.

    http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/201...rt_river_index

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    After victim's family protests, killer Judith Neelley asks to cancel parole hearing

    By Tyler Jett
    Chattanooga Times Free Press

    Convicted killer Judith Ann Neelley has asked to skip her scheduled parole board hearing.

    Neelley, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of a LaFayette, Ga., teenager, asked Tuesday that her May 23 hearing be canceled. Family members of her victim, 13-year-old Lisa Ann Millican, planned to speak against her at the hearing.

    Judy Millican Bradley, the victim's younger sister, said attorneys told her that Neelley's request is not automatically granted. The parole board has to give her a waiver to sign, which has not yet happened. They expect to do that this week. Then, she said, Neelley could come back up for parole in five years.

    Neelley's attorney and Sarah Still, the assistant executive director of Alabama Boards of Pardons and Paroles, did not return emails seeking comment for this story. Nobody answered at the board's listed phone number, which does not allow callers to leave a voice mail.

    According to Times Free Press archives, Millican was staying at a Cedartown, Ga., home for juveniles in September 1982 when the group took a trip to a mall in Rome. She then disappeared. Neelley later confessed that she picked up the girl, whom she didn't know, and traveled with her in the region for about four days, staying in motel rooms. Neelley's twin babies and her husband, Alvin Howard Neelley, were with them.

    During a March 1983 trial, FBI Agent Bill Burns testified that Neelley confessed to killing Millican. She brought the teenager to the rim of Little River Canyon near Fort Payne, Ala., and forced her to lie face down in handcuffs. She injected Millican with Liquid-Plumr and Drano. Later, she told Millican to face the canyon. She shot her in the back.

    Police later received a tip and found Millican's body in a tree at the bottom of the 80-foot cliff. Officers told the Times Free Press that they believed Neelley may have called in the tip.

    "I'm glad she's staying in [prison]," the victim's sister, Bradley, said Wednesday morning. "I know that's wrong. I may not get to heaven because I can't forgive her. She killed my sister. Lisa never got to grow up, never got to finish school, never got to hold a kid."

    Bradley was 18 months old when Millican died. But she grew up hearing stories about her from their mother and brother. Even years later, she said, her mother couldn't get through an anecdote about Millican with her voice intact. Her mother told her not to read "Early Graves: The Shocking True-Crime Story of the Youngest Woman Ever Sentenced to Death Row," a 1990 book about the case.

    But when she was 13, Bradley said, she made sure nobody was around to see her when she read through the account in the library.

    "I never got to know Lisa," she said. "I figured there was a way to find out for myself. But it was not. It was not a good way to find out. I never should have read that as a child."

    Neelley's attorney, Robert French, argued that Alvin Neelley had essentially brainwashed her. She grew up in a poor family in Rutherford County, Tenn., according to Times Free Press archives. A local detective told a reporter back then that officers knew the family pretty well.

    Neelley testified that her mother was "one of the biggest whores in Murfreesboro" and would service clients in their manufactured home, Neelley hearing the details of the business transactions from her bedroom. When she was about 15, she met Alvin Neelley, after he came with a friend to visit her mother. He was 10 years older than Neelley. They began having sex later that year.

    During the trial, three teen girls in the Rome area said that Neelley tried to pick them up around the time that she found Millican. French argued that Alvin Neelley beat his wife repeatedly and demanded that she bring girls back to him for "kinky sex." But Neelley told police that she was alone with Millican when she killed her. When a prosecutor asked her why didn't she just leave her husband, Neelley said, "I didn't think about it."

    A Fort Payne jury convicted Neelley of murder after deliberating for about an hour in March 1983. A month later, a judge sentenced her to the death penalty. Former Alabama Gov. Fob James commuted her sentence to life in 1999.

    In August, French released a book about his dealings with the Neelley murder trial. TV producers have created multiple documentaries about what happened. Cassie Millican, the wife of Millican's brother, said those forms of entertainment are unfair to the family. She said the case is continually on her husband's mind, though they have tried not to build too many walls around their own children.

    "It was sort of disgusting," she said of French. "That's the kind of respect we get from these people, who we consider bottom feeders."

    In addition to the murder of Millican, Neelley and her husband are linked to the death of 23-year-old Janice Chapman. In October 1982, about a month after Millican's death, Neelley picked up Chapman and her common-law husband, John Hancock. Chapman and Hancock had been walking along the road in Rome, near their home. Neelley offered to give them a ride, Hancock told the Times Free Press about a month later.

    He said Neelley explained she was new to the area and asked them to show her around. They drove through several counties in Georgia. In Gordon County, he said, he walked into the woods to urinate.

    "The chick walked up behind me with a pistol, pulled the hammer and told me not to talk," he recalled to the Times Free Press. " The last thing she told me was not to worry about my girlfriend."

    He said Neelley shot him in the back before she and her husband took off with Chapman. He managed to get near the road and flag down a truck. Investigators later found Chapman's body in Chattooga County. Neelley pleaded guilty to kidnapping in that case, receiving a life sentence. Alvin Neelley was convicted of murder, and he died in a Georgia prison in 2005.

    http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/l...dith-n/469889/
    In the Shadow of Your Wings
    1 A Prayer of David. Hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to my cry! Give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit!

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