The Alabama Supreme Court has authorized another death row inmate – to be executed.
The court has handed down a death warrant – for Keith Edmund Gavin – who was sentenced to death for a March 1998, murder case – of William Clayton Jr. – in Cherokee County.
Gavin has been on Alabama Death Row since 2000 and he is set to die by lethal injection after he chose not to opt-in to being executed by the State Method of nitrogen gas in 2018 when inmates were given an opportunity to change their execution method.
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey has not yet issued an execution date.
Governor Ivey, however HAS set a time frame beginning May 30th for the next execution – also by lethal injection – of Jamie Ray Mills.
The executions are to occur at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.
In Gavin’s case, court records show Clayton, a courier service driver, had parked his van to use an ATM machine in downtown Centre, and he was finished with deliveries for the day, and was stopping at Regions Bank to get money to take his wife to dinner.
Records state that Gavin shot Clayton during an attempted robbery, and pushed him into the passenger’s seat, and drove off in the van.
With an investigator from the District Attorney’s Office in close pursuit – Gavin stopped the van, got out, shot at the investigator, and fled.
Gavin was soon apprehended – and Clayton was pronounced dead – at an area hospital; two eyewitnesses positively identified Gavin as the person doing the shooting and that included his cousin, who was an employee of the Illinois Department of Corrections.
The cousin testified about trips he and Gavin had made to Centre, and on that day he saw Gavin fire shots at the driver of the van – Gavin also fired at an investigator as he fled, according to testimony.
That incident came about just a few months after Gavin was released on parole from prison in Illinois – after he had served 17 years, of a 34-year sentence for murder. Following his conviction, Gavin’s appeals failed in state and federal court.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review his case back in 2005 – and in 2017.