Results 1 to 10 of 10

Thread: Robert Shawn Ingram - Alabama Death Row

  1. #1
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    1,515

    Robert Shawn Ingram - Alabama Death Row


    Robert Shawn Ingram


    Summary of Offense:

    In a dispute over a drug debt, Ingram and three others taped a man to a bench, doused him in gasoline and set him on fire on July 31, 1993. Ingram was the person who poured the gasoline and lit the fire.

    Ingram was sentenced to death in 1995.

  2. #2
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    March 19, 2010

    Alabama Supreme Court grants Rule 32 to Ingram

    By CHRIS NORWOOD
    The Daily Home

    TALLADEGA — The Alabama Supreme Court has ordered a new Rule 32 hearing for a man convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in 1995.

    Robert Shawn Ingram, 39, was one of four people convicted in connection with the death of Gregory “New York” Huguley over a drug debt in 1993. Anthony Boyd was also sentenced to death, and Marcel Ackles is currently serving life without the possibility of parole. Quintay Cox testified against the other three and is serving life with the possibility of parole.

    Ingram was convicted of capital murder and the jury recommended a death sentence. Former Circuit Judge Jerry Fielding, who was still on the bench at the time, concurred.

    The conviction and sentence were upheld by the state Court of Criminal Appeals in 2000. He filed a Rule 32 appeal in 2002.

    According to “A Guidebook To Alabama’s Death Penalty Appeals Process,” published by the state Attorney General’s Office, Rule 32 appeals are the next phase after the direct appeal. “Under Rule 32, the defendant may not dispute the sentence or conviction directly, but may dispute some important collateral issues.” These include lack of jurisdiction by the trial court, the court imposing an illegal sentence, newly discovered evidence and ineffective council, to name some of the most common. These issues cannot be raised during a direct appeal.

    Rule 32 appeals are heard in the circuit court where defendant was convicted.

    The state, which is represented by the Attorney General’s Office at this point, filed a proposed order denying the Rule 32 petition. Fielding had retired by this time, and the case was turned over to Circuit Judge Bo Hollingsworth. On June 8 of that year, Hollingsworth signed an order identical to the proposal filed by the state.

    The June 8 order was rescinded by a second order signed by Hollingsworth July 21, 2004. In the second order, he also recused himself from any further involvement in the case.

    The state court of criminal appeals, for technical reasons, order the July 21 order vacated, and upheld the June 8 denial.

    The Supreme Court ruling issued Friday stated “the general rule is even when the court adopts proposed findings verbatim, the findings are those of the court and may be reversed only if clearly erroneous.”

    The decision cites two problematic statements in Hollingsworth’s June 8 order. The first begins “Having considered the first…Rule 32 petition… the state’s amended answer, the state’s motion to dismiss, the evidence presented at trial, and the events within the personal knowledge of the court…”

    The second states, “In addition, this court presided over Ingram’s capital murder trial and personally observed the performance of both lawyers throughout Ingram’s trial and sentencing.

    ”The obvious problem,” the decision continues, “…is that Judge Fielding, not Judge Hollingsworth, presided over Ingram’s capital murder trial. Although minor factual errors understandably find their way into orders drafted by trial courts in handling busy dockets, an error as to whether the judge in fact sat as the trial judge in a capital murder trial and is basing his decision on personal observations and personal knowledge in doing so is the most material and obvious of errors.”

    The Supreme Court now sends the case back to the Court of Criminal Appeals, which will send it back to Talladega County Circuit Court. Fielding was appointed as a supernumerary circuit judge, will be ordered to consider Ingram’s petition.

    Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb and Justice Greg Shaw recused themselves from the case because they were on the appeals court at the time that the June 8 order was considered.

    Hollingsworth is forbidden by the Cannons of Judicial Ethics from commenting on a case that he has been involved in as a judge.

    On July 31, 1993, the four defendants set out looking for Huguley in a van rented by Ackles and armed with a nine millimeter automatic pistol provided by Cox. According to testimony given at trial, Huguley had purchased cocaine from the defendants several days before, but had failed to pay $200 he owed them.

    When Huguley was spotted in Anniston, Ingram took the pistol and forced him into the van. Cox was dropped off shortly afterward, and told to follow in a separate vehicle.

    Ackles purchased gasoline in a plastic container before leaving Anniston, and all four defendants then drove to a baseball field in Munford.

    Ingram then forced Huguley to lie down on a bench at the ballfield, while Ackles and Boyd taped his mouth, hands and feet with duct tape. Huguley was then duct taped to the bench itself, and Ingram doused him with gasoline.

    After making a two foot gasoline trial away from the bench, Huguley was set on fire and burned for 10 to 15 minutes, while the defendants watched.

    http://www.dailyhome.com/view/full_s...e-32-to-Ingram

  3. #3
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    On August 28, 2017, Ingram filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    https://dockets.justia.com/docket/al...cv01464/163654

  4. #4
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2019
    Location
    Tennessee
    Posts
    7,316
    On March 31, 2021, Ingram’s habeas petition was denied by the federal district court.

    https://docs.justia.com/cases/federa...1464/163654/44
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

    I’m going to the ghost McDonalds - Garcello

  5. #5
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2019
    Location
    Tennessee
    Posts
    7,316
    On April 28, 2022, Ingram filed an appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

    https://dockets.justia.com/docket/ci.../ca11/22-11459
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

    I’m going to the ghost McDonalds - Garcello

  6. #6
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    On March 29, 2023, oral argument will be heard in Ingram's appeal before the Eleventh Circuit.

    https://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/sites/...%29_Ingram.pdf

  7. #7
    Senior Member CnCP Addict
    Join Date
    Feb 2021
    Posts
    700
    Alabama Death Row inmate, convicted of burning man alive, seeks new sentence at federal appeals court

    By Ivana Hrynkiw
    al.com

    Attorneys for an Alabama Death Row inmate told a federal appeals court on Wednesday that Robert Shawn Ingram was so likely to be convicted and sentenced to death during his 1994 trial that an effective attorney would have encouraged a plea deal to spare his life.

    But the Alabama Attorney General’s Office argued Ingram knew the risks of not going through with his negotiated plea and made the decision on his own after consulting with his trial lawyers and after a judge informed him of his rights.

    Attorneys for Ingram and the state argued on Wednesday morning before a three-judge panel of U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court judges at the appeals courthouse in Atlanta.

    Circuit Court Judges Adalberto Jordan, Britt Grant, and Elizabeth Branch heard the arguments. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall was not present for the hearing.

    Ingram was convicted in Talladega County for the July 1993 kidnapping and burning death of Gregory Huguley a year prior. Huguley was abducted at gunpoint by Ingram and several other men, according to court records, from a street in Anniston after failing to pay a drug debt. He was taken to a park, taped to a bench, and doused with gasoline before the men set him on fire.

    In his latest appeal, Ingram’s lawyers from the Federal Defenders for the Middle District of Alabama argued that Ingram negotiated a plea agreement to a parole-eligible sentence on his own after police arrested him in 1993, with the agreement he would testify against his co-defendants. But when it came time to testify, he didn’t take the stand.

    Prosecutors withdrew their plea agreement, and Ingram went to trial. There, he was convicted and sentenced to death.

    Lucie Butner, Ingram’s lawyer, told the judges Wednesday that despite Ingram’s sudden decision to not go through with his plea deal 30 years ago, his trial lawyer “did almost nothing” to warn him of the likely outcome of a trial. She said that during a previous hearing, the trial lawyer testified he had “no doubt” Ingram would be convicted of capital murder if put before a jury.

    Under questioning from the appeals court judges as to what the initial lawyer should have done, Butner said there was a “fundamental obligation” of the lawyer to understand why Ingram changed his mind.

    And if he would have investigated that reasoning, she said, the lawyer would have learned what Ingram told a judge in another appeals hearing: That he was under the impression—after consulting with his co-defendants in the county jail—that if no one testified against each other, they would all be released.

    “If no one talks, everybody walks,” Butner described Ingram’s mindset.

    She told the judges Wednesday that, although the trial judge informed Ingram of his legal rights and what he could do regarding a plea or trial, it was his lawyer’s job to advise him of specific concerns and his likely outcome. It was the responsibility of a “reasonable trial attorney who knows he will be convicted,” to talk to him, Butner argued.

    “He did the bare minimum, if that.”

    Deputy Solicitor General Barrett Bowdre argued for the state Wednesday morning. He said that Ingram’s trial lawyer told him the risks of backing out of his plea agreement and advised him to keep it.

    He said that there is no proof Ingram could have been swayed to change his mind, no matter if the lawyer had pushed him or contacted his family members to try and convince Ingram. He noted that the trial lawyer previously testified Ingram was “adamant” on his decision.

    “During (a meeting with his attorneys and the trial judge), the State noted that Ingram had given a statement admitting his involvement in the crime, that it was viewing his failure to testify against (a co-defendant) as a breach of the plea agreement, that it would try Ingram for capital murder, and that it intended to use Ingram’s statement against him at trial,” said the AG’s office in a brief filed to the appeals court.

    “Mr. Ingram did not understand the consequences of rejecting the plea deal he was offered in exchange for his testimony,” his lawyers argued in a brief to the appeals court. “Mr. Ingram’s trial counsel was ineffective and did not provide competent advice…”

    In a lower court hearing, Ingram testified that he would have accepted the deal and testified if he understood that his deal would spare his life. He said he didn’t know he was basically certain to be convicted, given his admission to police and eyewitness statements, and sent to death row. If his lawyers would have explained that, Ingram testified, he would have stuck with the plea deal.

    Ingram said he believed just admitting his role in the brutal killing would be beneficial for him. “I thought I had helped the police so much, I actually thought I was going to be okay from day one,” he told a lower court.

    Because of counsel’s failure to provide competent advice that Mr. Ingram could understand, his conviction for capital murder and his sentence of death were more serious than the outcome would have been had he not rejected the plea,” his lawyers argued in a filing.

    Ingram’s lawyers are asking the court to send the case back to Talladega County, throw out his conviction and death sentence, and resentence Ingram to what he would have received under the initial plea agreement.

    “Mr. Ingram’s claim is straightforward: had he received competent advice and been counseled so he could understand, he would have accepted the terms of the plea and testified against Mr. Boyd,” his team said.

    “What counsel did was not enough,” Butner said Wednesday. “Counsel did not ask (why he changed his mind… and counsel had a duty to ask.”

    “He did not tell his client that he would not walk.”

    https://www.al.com/news/anniston-gad...als-court.html

  8. #8
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    The panel is made up of Judges Adalberto Jordan (Obama), Britt Grant (Trump), and Elizabeth Branch (Trump).

  9. #9
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2019
    Location
    Tennessee
    Posts
    7,316
    Habeas relief denied by the Eleventh Circuit yesterday.

    https://law.justia.com/cases/federal...023-09-06.html
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

    I’m going to the ghost McDonalds - Garcello

  10. #10
    Senior Member CnCP Addict
    Join Date
    Feb 2021
    Posts
    700
    Panel and en banc rehearing denied October 17, 2023.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketP...20Appendix.pdf

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 12 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 12 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
  •