Brian Esser, Litigation associate, commented on a September 22, 2011, Associated Press story (“Alabama governor rejects inmate’s clemency request”) regarding the last-minute clemency request for his client, Alabama death row inmate, Derrick Mason.
Alabama governor Robert Bentley turned down the clemency request, saying he saw no reason to overturn the decision of the jury that found Mason guilty and recommended that he be executed. Mason was convicted of shooting Huntsville convenience store clerk Angela Cagle during a robbery.
According to the article, “Mason's plea to Bentley included a letter from retired Madison County Circuit Court Judge Loyd Little, who sentenced Mason to death. [Little] said he now realizes the death sentence was not appropriate when compared to other cases.”
Esser said Little's change of heart concerning the death sentence is reason to stop the execution.
"Critics have said that Judge Little is anti-death penalty. It is not that he is anti-death penalty. He is anti-death penalty in this case where death is not warranted," Esser said in a statement released by his New York office.
Esser said Mason has personally written to Bentley and told the governor he has changed his life. Mason was 19 at the time Cagle was killed. Mason was executed by lethal injection on September 22.