Mid-November execution date set for Alabama inmate convicted of robbing, killing man in 1993

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama’s governor has scheduled a November execution date for an inmate convicted of shooting and killing a man during a 1993 robbery.

Gov. Kay Ivey on Wednesday set Nov. 16 as the date for Casey A. McWhorter to die by injection. The 48-year-old inmate was convicted of capital murder for his role in the robbery and shooting death of Edward Lee Williams in Marshall County.

Prosecutors said McWhorter, who was 18 at the time, plotted with two younger teens including William’s 15-year-old son to steal money and other items from Williams’ home and also kill him. Prosecutors said McWhorter and a 16-year-old co-defendant went to Williams’ home with rifles and fashioned homemade silencers from a pillow and milk jug stuffed with napkins. An appellate court wrote that evidence in the case showed Williams grabbed the rifle held by the 16-year-old and they began to struggle over it before the man was shot a total of 11 times by both teens,

The jury that convicted McWhorter recommended the death sentence by a vote of 10-2, according to court records.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined in 2021 to review the case. McWhorter’s attorneys argued that a juror in the case failed to disclose in jury selection that she believed her father had been murdered. They also argued that McWhorter’s trial attorney failed to prevent mitigating evidence about McWhorter’s background.

The Department of Corrections will have until 6 a.m. on Nov. 17 to complete the execution. The state did away with a midnight deadline for carrying out executions after several lethal injections were canceled because of last-minute legal battles or problems inserting intravenous lines.

The attorney general’s office has asked that another inmate, Kenneth Eugene Smith, be put to death by nitrogen hypoxia, a method the state has authorized but never used. No execution date has been set in that case.