Results 1 to 10 of 10

Thread: Kerry Maguire Spencer - Alabama Death Row

  1. #1
    Guest
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    5,534

    Kerry Maguire Spencer - Alabama Death Row


    Officer Carlos Owen


    Officer Robert Bennett


    Officer Harley Chisholm




    Facts of the Crime:

    Spencer killed Carlos Owen, Robert Bennett and Harley Chisholm during a June 17, 2004 shooting that also left Officer Michael Collins wounded. The officers were trying to serve a misdemeanor arrest warrant on Nathaniel Woods inside the Ensley crack house he ran with Spencer.

    For more on Woods, who was executed on March 5, 2020, see here:

    http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/...=Kerry+Spencer

  2. #2
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    February 27, 2009

    The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals has once again set aside the death sentence of Kerry Spencer until the trial judge clarifies his sentencing order in the capital murders of three Birmingham police officers in 2004.

    Today's decision was the second time the appeals court has ordered Jefferson County Circuit Judge Tommy Nail to resentence Spencer in the deaths of Carlos Owen, Robert Bennett and Harley Chisholm in the June 17, 2004, shooting that also left Officer Michael Collins wounded.

    Spencer, 28, shot the officers while they were trying to serve a misdemeanor arrest warrant on Nathaniel Woods, who was running an Ensley crack house with Spencer. Woods also was sentenced to death in the case.

    The appeals court ordered Nail to resentence Spencer and file a new order that explains how he weighed all factors against the death penalty versus criteria outlined in state law in favor of imposing it.

    The unanimous court also wanted Nail to explain why he overrode a jury's recommendation of life without parole.

    "In light of the many levels of judicial scrutiny ahead in this case, we conclude it proper to ask the trial court to clarify its sentencing order," according to the opinion written by then-Justice H.W. "Bucky" McMillan.

    McMillan retired from the court last month. His replacement on the court, Beth Kellum, concurred in today's opinion.

    (Source: The Associated Press)

  3. #3
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    In today's United States Supreme Court orders, Spencer's petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis was DENIED.

  4. #4
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    On August 15, 2011, the US Supreme Court denied a petition for rehearing.

  5. #5
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    20,875

    Police Officers Harley Chisholm III, Carlos Owen and Charles Bennett


    'I didn't think there was much hope': Surviving officer recalls deadliest day in Birmingham police history

    BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- June 17, 2004, started out as an unremarkable day for Birmingham Police Sgt. Mike Collins and fellow West Precinct officers Carlos "Curly" Owen, Harley Chisolm III and Charles Robert Bennett.

    It would soon become the deadliest day in the department's history.

    Collins, then 37 and not yet a sergeant
    , had worked in the West Precinct for 10 years after leaving the Army, having served stints in Berlin and Operation Desert Storm.

    While on patrol, Collins heard Owen talking on the police radio about a complaint on 18th Street in Ensley. He drove there to help and encountered Nathaniel Woods for the first time. Owen was checking to see if a car used by Woods and parked behind his Ensley apartment was stolen.

    Woods was shouting expletives about the police from inside one of the four small, dingy apartments.

    The officers argued with Woods through a screen door. At one point, Woods challenged Owen to stop hiding behind his badge and fight. The 58-year-old officer took off his badge, but Woods stayed behind the locked screen door.

    A neighbor came over and told them to stop the nonsense and persuaded Owen to put his badge back on. Owen told Collins to check Woods' name in the criminal database from his patrol car. His search showed Woods was wanted on a misdemeanor charge out of Fairfield, accused of beating up his girlfriend.

    The officers, joined by Chisholm, left to double-check that the warrant was valid. Collins said Woods left the officers with one warning: ''Come in here, and we'll (expletive) you up.''

    Later, with a photo of Woods and a copy of the warrant in hand, they set out to arrest Woods. Bennett joined them. Collins and Owen went to the back door; Chisholm and Bennett covered the front.

    They told Woods to come out. He did, but it was to curse them and argue he wasn't a wanted man. They called Chisholm to the back to bring the warrant and photo.

    ''We didn't know for sure 100 percent that it was him, so we had to get the picture,'' Collins said in a 2005 interview. ''I wasn't going to stand there and argue. Nathaniel Woods wasn't going to agree with anything we said that day.''

    Woods ran back into the apartment. Chisholm, Owen and Collins followed. Just inside the kitchen, Chisholm got Woods down on the floor as if he was about to handcuff him, and Woods yelled, "I give up. I give up. Just don't spray me with that mace."

    Bennett, still out in the front of the building, said over the police radio: "They are coming out the front.'' Collins wasn't able to go to the front door through the apartment because Woods, Chisholm and Owen were blocking the doorway.

    Instead, he ran out the back door to make his way to Bennett.

    Gunfire erupted. Collins said he felt a slap on his side and on his pistol which was holstered. He said he was stunned and that he radioed a "shots fired" call and considered his options. "I can't say it as fast as I thought it, but I was like 'Hey dummy, you're standing in the open and somebody's shooting at you,'' he said.

    He took cover behind his police cruiser. He put out a "double aught" call, the most drastic request for backup an officer can make. The radio he was using kept giving him a busy signal as he frantically tried to call for help. "I'll never forget that sound,'' he said. "I called them (the other officers) on the radio but they didn't answer. I knew then. I didn't think there was much hope."

    He looked back at the apartment and saw a man, later identified as Kerry Spencer, standing just outside the apartment, firing a gun at him. His holster had been hit, there was a hole in his pants and a wound to his leg. Later he found a metal fragment in his pocket. ''That was the first time I saw him. I knew it wasn't Nathaniel, and I was like, 'Who the hell is that?' ''

    Spencer continued to fire. When Collins looked again, he was gone. Officer Hugh Butler was the first to go to Collins. ''When I saw him, I was like, 'Thank God,' '' Collins remembers. ''The first thing I said to him was, 'It was only a misdemeanor.'"

    Collins moved toward the apartment, but Butler blocked him. "I'll never forget that,'' Collins said. "It was a good thing. That would be images I would have seen forever."




    Hundreds of officers from Birmingham and other departments descended upon the scene. They found an SKS assault rifle outside the front door of the apartment, and a number of guns inside in plain view. A massive, tense manhunt followed, and Spencer and Woods were arrested later that day. Spencer was found hiding in the attic of a nearby home, still armed.

    Spencer later would testify that they sold drugs out of the apartment, making up to $3,000 a day. He said he had bought the SKS the day before, and had even test-fired it the previous night.

    On the morning of the shooting, he went to take a nap. He took a Seroquel, which is a short-acting anti-psychotic drug, with a beer to help him sleep. He took the assault rifle with him.

    He testified that when he awoke, he saw Chisholm with a gun and "automatically opened fire." "It was a split-second decision,'' he later testified. "It wasn't like I had time to say, 'Oh, you fixing to shoot me. No. It was he pulled his gun up and I already had the weapon in my hand so I opened fire."

    Collins went to the hospital to be checked out. There they found, and removed, shrapnel from his leg. He was treated and released.

    ''That's when it hit me I should be dead,'' he said in 2005. ''I don't know, and I can never prove it, but I'm not 100 percent sure that Carlos didn't push me, or give me a shove out the door.''

    http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/in...l#incart_river
    "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

  6. #6
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    20,875

    Officer Mike Collins


    Birmingham Police Department's Deadliest Day: The 'fourth officer' learns survival isn't living

    BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - Mike Collins is the cop who lived.

    He was shot in 2004, along with three other Birmingham police officers making a routine drug arrest at a house in Ensley. He survived the SKS. The others did not.

    Tuesday will mark the 10-year anniversary of the bloodiest day in Birmingham Police Department history. Collins made it out alive, but soon learned survival is not really living.

    He was haunted by sleepless nights, racked with guilt and moved into a job shuffling papers. If you had asked anybody in the department what would become of Collins after Carlos "Curly" Owen, Harley Chisolm III and Charles Robert Bennett died, they would have shaken their heads.

    Collins relived the events in his mind, day and night, asking what he could have done differently. "I thought about it every minute," he said. "It played over and over in my head probably for three years."

    He was medicated by doctors and kept off the streets, away from the job he still loved. "I was getting more depressed because I wasn't getting to see the good side to policing: Catching the bad guy, helping somebody," he said. "It was just all paperwork and drudge. Helping somebody makes me feel good."

    He thought about leaving the job. That was then. This is now. And this is not a story about Collins' scars, but one about his healing. And it's a remembrance for those who died that day.

    "This tragic incident absolutely shocked the conscience of Birmingham,'' said Birmingham police Chief A.C. Roper, who at that time was the investigative bureau commander at the Hoover Police Department.

    "A couple of days later, I drove by the house just to look and reflect. The fact that three dedicated public servants lost their lives was just sad for the department and the community,'' Roper said. "Mike was very fortunate there wasn't a fourth officer down that day."

    When things were darkest, Collins knew the one steady thing in his life was his job.

    And he stuck with it. And one day it sunk in, after talking with doctors and specialists and police brass who tried to help him find his way back: "There's really nothing I could have done but get shot."

    Things then changed. "He's done very well in bouncing back,'' Roper said, "and it was an honor to promote him to sergeant."

    Collins in 2009 went back to crime-fighting on the streets. "I made it back when a lot of people never thought I would. I wasn't sure I would."

    'I'm still here'

    The week following the shooting was a blur with three funerals in a little more than 24 hours.

    Nearly 700 police officers from throughout the state, the Southeast and as far away as New York and Washington, D.C., came to pay their respects.

    The services included 21-gun salutes, the mournful strain of bagpipes playing "Amazing Grace" and the release of doves to signify a spirit returning home. The governor and other dignitaries spoke at a memorial service.

    "Although 10 years have passed, it seems like it was just yesterday,'' said former Birmingham police Chief Annetta Nunn, who led the department during those trying times.

    "Each time I pass that apartment I think about and visualize the officers murdered there, and wonder how their families are doing. I continue to pray for them."

    Chisholm, 40, known as "RoboCop," was remembered as a decorated ex-Marine who was tough on criminals and devoted to public service.

    He knew, his supervisors said, when to police from the heart and when to police by the book. He was, they said, a hard-charger with a heart as big as a mountain.

    Bennett, 33, was likened to a knight – loyal, courageous, courteous and generous. At his funeral, he was described as a "giant of a man" and a "hero." He left behind a wife and a 4-year-old daughter.

    Owen, 58, a highly-decorated, 27-year veteran of the department and a former president of the Fraternal Order of Police, was well-known in the Ensley area he patrolled for years.

    He was affectionately known for his once-permed hair and admired for his uncanny ability to catch bad guys. He was called a "soldier of the city" and "a rare breed." He was a husband, father and grandfather who was set to soon retire.

    ''I'm standing there at their husbands' funerals and I'm still here, with just a scratch,'' Collins said. ''They always said they were thankful I was alive. If something had happened to me, it would have just been another funeral they had to go through.''

    Now the victims touch me a little more because I've been one.

    Collins was off work for several months and then put into an administrative position for four years.

    'I could still do it.'

    Days after the shootings, Collins' father was diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer. He died one month and one day after the shootings. His mother died the following March.

    Collins lost his house, got divorced and moved with two of his four children into an apartment.

    "I said after the shooting it couldn't get much worse than that, and it did,'' Collins said in 2005. "I don't say, 'How much more?' anymore, because then I find out."

    The first few years were a struggle. "I don't like to use the term PTSD, but there were a lot of sleepless nights,'' he said. "I still can't sleep."

    Two trials were held for Kerry Spencer, the confessed shooter, and Nathaniel Woods in 2005.

    "Kerry Spencer was guilty. I just had to make sure I didn't make a mistake. On Nathaniel's, I had to show the jury what he did because he didn't pull the trigger. Granted, at the end, he showed it himself," Collins said.

    "I still to this day have more anger for Nathaniel Woods than I do Kerry Spencer because I believe he's the one that planned it. It was his idea. He was the catalyst that caused it all. It would have never happened without him."

    Some questioned whether they were overzealous cops, four white officers harassing two black men.

    "There's still people who think we did something wrong. No, it was a normal misdemeanor arrest at a drug house. That was not unusual," Collins said.

    "They died trying to stop crack from being sold in the neighborhood."

    Spencer and Woods were convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. Both remain on death row at Holman Prison.

    About that time, Collins patrolled a football game for extra pay. It was the first time back in uniform, and back in a police cruiser.

    "I tried to climb back out," he said. "I had a big breakdown. Maybe it was the realization that I might not be doing what I'd been doing all my life, that I might not make it back."

    "I was gone,'' he said. "I was drained. I had nothing left to give."

    Part of the turning point came in 2006 when the city sent him to an occupational health doctor at UAB.

    "He mostly listened, but he would say, 'What could you have done?''' Collins said. "I finally believed there was nothing I could have done but get shot."

    He remembers the day he turned the corner. It was Oct. 23, 2006, the day his close friend, Fairfield Police Officer Mary Smith, was shot to death during a traffic stop.

    "I was coming out of the doctor's office feeling good and then I saw the parade of police cars and ambulances pull up. I called and said, 'Who is it?'"

    He and Smith had worked together in Birmingham's West Precinct. "I had just spoken at her retirement party,'' Collins said. "That's why I haven't spoken at any retirement parties since. I know that's crazy."

    Despite that tragedy, Collins continued to heal.

    In 2008, he met his wife, Allyson. "I told my wife when I met her, 'My kids kept me alive; you taught me how to live again,' he said.

    Collins was promoted to sergeant in 2009 and went back to patrol.

    "I was a little cautious at first,'' he said. He was assigned to the North Precinct, then to the overnight shift at the South Precinct. After that, he became the supervisor of the South Precinct task force, and now is the day shift sergeant.

    "It was good to get back out and prove to the officers that I could still do it, and prove to myself that I could still do it," Collins said.

    He said his experience helps him relate to victims.

    "Part of the breakdown was the years of seeing people killed, the bodies, and I had locked it away,'' he said. "Now I can't detach myself from it. Now the victims touch me a little more because I've been one."

    Collins said he thinks about the shooting several times a week, and occasionally stops at the gravesites.

    Memories pop into his mind at unexpected times, like the first time he watched his daughter catch a fly ball, and when he saw her graduate from high school.

    "I'm getting to watch this and they aren't,'' Collins said. "I shouldn't be here. I was given a blessing to be able to watch this."

    http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/in...l#incart_river
    "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

  7. #7
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    20,875
    Court upholds death sentences in murders of Birmingham, Pelham police officers

    A state appeals court is upholding the convictions and death sentences of two men convicted of killing police officers.

    The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals issued opinions Friday denying appeals by Kerry M. Spencer and Bart Wayne Johnson.

    Spencer was sentenced to death in the slayings of three Birmingham police officers in 2005. Jurors recommended life without parole, but a judge sentenced Spencer to die.

    Johnson was convicted of killing a Pelham police officer in 2009. A Shelby County judge had to issue a new sentencing order for Johnson, and the appeals court says that order was sufficient to explain the penalty.

    The court also upheld conviction and death sentence of James Earl Walker, who was convicted of killing an 87-year-old woman in Houston County in 2003.

    http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/201...l#incart_river
    "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

  8. #8
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    On November 21, 2016, Spencer filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    https://dockets.justia.com/docket/al...cv01877/160725

  9. #9
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2019
    Location
    Tennessee
    Posts
    7,316
    I am honestly surprised how Woods got fast tracked when this thug is the one who pulled the trigger. Hopefully they deny his habeas petition soon

  10. #10
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
    Location
    Pennsylvania
    Posts
    4,795
    Related

    Alabama executes Nathan Woods for shooting and killing three cops in 2004

    By Associated Press

    A man convicted in the 2004 killings of three police officers in Alabama who were shot by another man was executed Thursday evening.

    Inmate Nathaniel Woods, 43, was pronounced dead at 9:01 p.m. CST Thursday following a lethal injection at the state prison in Atmore, authorities said. The inmate had no last words before the chemicals began flowing, but appeared to arrange his hands in a Muslim sign of faith.

    Woods and Kerry Spencer were convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in the slayings of the three Birmingham officers. The officers’ deaths in a hail of gunfire rocked Alabama’s largest city in 2004. Carlos Owen, Harley A. Chisolm III and Charles R.

    Bennett died while trying to serve a misdemeanor domestic assault warrant on Woods at a suspected drug house.

    Prosecutors said Spencer was the triggerman in the slaying, opening fire on the officers with a high-powered rifle inside the apartment, though Woods was convicted as an accomplice.

    The execution came after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a temporary stay to consider last-minute appeals and then denied the inmate’s petitions. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey denied a request for clemency.

    “This is not a decision that I take lightly, but I firmly believe in the rule of law and that justice must be served. My thoughts and most sincere prayers are for the families of Officers Chisholm, Owen and Bennett. May the God of all comfort be with these families as they continue to find peace and heal from this terrible crime,” Ivey said in a statement after the execution.

    Supporters, including the son of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., waged a last-minute appeal to stop the execution as the case drew national attention. Supporters argued that Spencer said he was the sole person responsible for the shootings and that Woods received an unfair trial in 2005.

    “’He is actually innocent,” Woods’ sister, Pamela Woods, had told reporters outside the prison earlier Thursday. “Kerry Spencer the actual shooter has stated many times that he did it on his own with no help for anyone.” Spencer told The Appeal in an article about the case that Woods was “100% innocent.”

    “Killing this African American man, whose case appears to have been strongly mishandled by the courts, could produce an irreversible injustice. Are you willing to allow a potentially innocent man to be executed?” Martin Luther King III had written the state’s governor, Ivey.

    Testimony showed the officers approached a small house where Woods and Spencer were believed to deal drugs; at least two other people were also inside. After talking to Woods through a back door, Owen and Chisholm entered. State lawyers wrote in court filings that Woods said he was surrendering to officers and soon after Spencer opened fire with a high-powered rifle.

    Owen, 58, and Chisholm, 40, were found dead in the kitchen just inside a rear door, and Bennett, 33, was fatally shot near the front door. A fourth officer was wounded but survived.

    Woods gave no last words after the warden read his death warrant. Woods at one point during the procedure jerked his left arm upward against the restraints of the gurney. His breathing became labored and then slowed.

    No execution date has been set for Spencer, who was convicted before Woods and is on death row.

    https://nypost.com/2020/03/05/alabam...-cops-in-2004/
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •