Latest / Revisionist History / The Alabama Murders - Part 3: A Peculiar Institution

Transcript

The Alabama Murders - Part 3: A Peculiar Institution · Revisionist History

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin Hello, hello Malcolm. Here, Before we get to the episode,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I want to let you know. You can get this
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: entire season now ad free by subscribing to Revisionist History
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: on Pushkin Plus. Sign up on the show page on
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot fm, slash Plus. Pushkin
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Plus subscribers can access ad free episodes, full audiobooks, exclusive binges,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: and bonus content for all Pushkin.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Shows previously on Revisionist History.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: Thirty five years.
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: That's how long Elizabethsonnett's family waited for justice to occur.
• 1:02
  Speaker 5: He backhanded is child.
• 1:04
  Speaker 6: I don't want the child had done.
• 1:05
  Speaker 7: You just don't do that to a child across its faith.
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: Thirty five long years. And I entered the call, and
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: I got all the information on who done it, who
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: was all involved in all the particular.
• 1:21
  Speaker 7: The viciousness was there that he could do something like that.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: I don't know who.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: When Elizabeth Sennett was murdered, Patterson Hood, one of the
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: lead singers of the legendary Southern rock band the Drive
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: By Truckers, was living in the shoals.
• 1:43
  Speaker 5: Obviously, it was the big front page story for you know,
• 1:48
  Speaker 5: weeks because it was such a horrific Grizzly murderer and
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: all of the different As more details started coming out
• 1:56
  Speaker 5: about it, you know, it just kept getting worse and worse.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: He was twenty four working at a pharmacy in Florence,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: looking for a way out.
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: They closed the Ford Plant in nineteen eighty two, which
• 2:10
  Speaker 5: was the year I graduated from high school. And when
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: it was gone, not only was it gone, but then
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: all these other businesses it depended on people who made
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: the money working at the Forward Plant. That stuff started going.
• 2:23
  Speaker 5: It's really bounced back in the last last fifteen to
• 2:27
  Speaker 5: twenty years. The town's almost unrecognizable because of all the
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: really positive things that have happened. But in eighty eight
• 2:34
  Speaker 5: it was pretty fucking grim.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Years went by, and the story of what happened to
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Senna stayed with him.
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: I don't know why it resonated with me, but I
• 2:43
  Speaker 5: first started writing it thinking in terms of writing it
• 2:46
  Speaker 5: more as like a short story or a book or
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: something like that, and I kind of wrote it in
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: that form, and then at some point started and turning
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: it into a song.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: The song was called The Fireplace Poker. He released it
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: on the album Go Go Boots, which came out in
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: twenty eleven, maybe you've heard.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: It before, God.
• 3:17
  Speaker 7: And answered, make it.
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Pattison Hood got his inspiration from one of the regulars
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: in that Florence drug store. A local police officer told
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: him back in nineteen eighty eight he was a.
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: Chief of police in Florence, and so he was all
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: up in any police business anywhere in the area, whether
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: it was in his jurisdiction or not. So he would
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: come in and just talk about stuff, and it was
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: interesting to hear for sure. He hearized really early on
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: that it wasn't like it was like it was supposed
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: to be looking like it was.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: What everyone first thought was that Elizabeth Sennatt had been
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: murdered by two local kids, Smith and John Force Parker.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: They were the ones who drove out to Kondogs Cemetery
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Road on that March morning. It was Parker's knife found
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: in a pond behind the house. They confessed. They were
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: charged with capital murder. Everything that would happen in the
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Senate case over the course of the next thirty five years,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: the controversies, the outrage, the moral calamity that would ultimately
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: take place in home and prison, was based on the
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: assumption that the justice system in Alabama had correctly determined
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: who was responsible for what happened that morning, namely, Charles
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Sennett was the mastermind who ordered the hit on his wife,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: and Parker and Smith were the killers. But that's not
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: what the Florence police chief told Patterson.
• 4:53
  Speaker 7: Hood found five was fall from grasp.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: Still she.
• 5:12
  Speaker 7: Tried. No one ever know what she told him, No
• 5:20
  Speaker 7: way told her the rare and is biden fifteen wax
• 5:31
  Speaker 7: fireplace poker.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: The Reverend came home from work and found the missus dying.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Life was falling from her grasp, But still she lay
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: there trying. No one will ever know what she told him,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: or know what he told her, because the Reverend did
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: his wife in fifteen whacks fireplace poker. Wait, the Reverend
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: did his.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: Wife in.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to my podcast
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: about Things Overlooked and Misunderstood. This episode of the Alabama
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Murders is about the trial of John Forest Parker, one
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: of the three young men charged in the killing of
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Sennett, and all of the ways that the catastrophe
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: that unfolded in the shoals the failure cascades set in
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: motion by the murder could have been averted. The counterfactual
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: version of events, the what ifs episode three a peculiar institution.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: I've had, you know, other cases that technically we're probably
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: factually more complex, but this is, Yeah, this is the
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: one that I will is still on my mind even
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: without chilcoming.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Tom Hefflin was John Forrest Parker's attorney. He remembers exactly
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: where he was today Elizabeth Sennett was murdered.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: I had been to Red Bay, Alabama, which is on
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: the Mississippi border, down the same highway where this happened.
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: I may well have seen John Forrest Parker and Kenny
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: Smith in their car. I don't know that for a fact,
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: but it might well add Then I got the call
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: that the court was going to appoint me and Gene
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: Handby to represent.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Heflin is the son of the former US Senator from Alabama,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Howell Heflin. In his living room, Heflin has a portrait
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: of his famous father, and father and son looked very
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: much alike. The Heflins have large leonine heads and the
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: kind of rumbling southern gravitas. So you were quart appointed attorneys.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: Quarter pointed attorneys?
• 8:02
  Speaker 8: Yeah?
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how much of your practice would have been that
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: kind of work in those days.
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: Zero usual.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: So how did it come about?
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: I think we'd had a string of capital murder cases,
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: and you know, everybody kind of is expected to serve.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Parker's trial took place in May of nineteen eighty nine
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: at the Cobra County Courthouse, a graceful white neoclassical building
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: on the town square in the center of Tuscumbia.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: All right, we're at the Copper County Courthouse. If we
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: look across, you see a three story building with a
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: razor wire around it in a fence. That's the county jail.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Heflin gave my colleague Ben Adaf Haffrey a tour of
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: the courthouse.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: We don't have full life.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: The courtroom was small, gray and white. On the wall,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: there's a portrait of the judge in the Parker case
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: inga Johnson, long blonde hair, blue eyes.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: So where did you guys there? And so the jury
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: box that's interesting, it sort of faces the judge food
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: boxes there. Witness would be there, Court Clark over there, obviously,
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: judge court reporter here, like some of the jurors would
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: have had like a direct view of John like from
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: feet away. Yeah, he would have been probably, we probably
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: would have sat him there. I think we did well
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: inside where we blocked him off to a certain extent.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: Why do you want to block him off, Well, he
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: is shackled, you know, that's basically I just don't want
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: to emphasize that he is a prisoner at that point,
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: even everybody knows he is.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Most criminal trials, particularly older ones, don't have an audio
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: or video record. There's just a transcript created by the
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: court reporter. The transcripts can run for thousands of pages,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: and they're their own unique literary Because there's no description
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: or elaboration or context. They read us flat banal. It
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: takes a little bit of time to learn how to
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: use your imagination to fill in the empty spaces. And
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: in the case of John Parker, what becomes clear when
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: you learn how to fill in those empty spaces is
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: that the prosecution's case was really, really weak. The state's
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: problem started with Parker sitting there in the docket a
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: few feet from the jurors. This was a case about
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: a murder for hire, a contract killer, and he just
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: didn't look the part of a contract killer. Tell us
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: about Parker.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: Parker was like eighteen. Actually a good family, solid people.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: He had had some prior childhood trauma that I think
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: probably created a little mittal. He had some drug problems.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Tell me more about your impressions of him.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: A kid who had been drugged out and didn't know
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: what they were doing.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: John Forest Parker had been arrested on multiple occasions for
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: minor crimes, breaking into cars, stealing gas. It failed ninth
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: grade three times. In one of his psychiatric evaluations done
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: after one of his previous arrests, there's this quote. John's
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: childhood history includes a brain concussion at the age of two.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: He reportedly was unconscious for thirty six hours following his concussion.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: His parents reported that due to his brain concussion, they
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: had not expected very much of John. On the drive
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: to Coondog Cemetery Road on the morning of Elizabeth sentence murder,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Parker and Smith had a bottle of whiskey between them
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: on the front seat. Parker injected himself with a healthy
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: dose of opioids. On the way over, Charles Sennitt gave
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: them some money to buy a gun. They used it
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: to buy drugs instead. In every description of the crime,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: they come across as completely clueless. Parker is nineteen, Smith
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: twenty two. They're so lackadaisical that after beating and stabbing
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Sennet, they threw the knife and the walking stick
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: they used into the pond behind her house, when there
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: are literally thousands of acres of wooded wilderness on the
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: drive back home where something could be thrown away and
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: it would never ever be found. Yes, Parker and Smith
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: heard Elizabeth Senne badly and took money to commit acts
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: of violence. But when we hear the phrase contract killers,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: we think of assassins, mafia hitman Stone called hard bitten lethal,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: These were screwed up kids. One of the biggest points
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: of weakness for the prosecution emerged d in the testimony
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: of the surgeon who was on duty at Helen Keller
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Hospital when Elizabeth Senate was brought into the er, David
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Parkes McKinley. He was the one who first saw her injuries,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: who tried to save her life, who pronounced her dead.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: The direct examination by the prosecutor is brief and to
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: the point. The police had found a knife, a hunting knife,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: in the pond behind the Senate house. This was a
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: knife that both Smith and Parker admitted to bringing with
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: them to Koondok Cemetery Road. The prosecution just wanted to
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: establish the connection between that knife and Elizabeth Sennett's death. Question, doctor,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: can you tell us what you recall about her physical appearance?
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: Answer?
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: The most striking thing was a multiple stab wounds, particularly
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: over the right side of the chest and at the
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: base of the neck. There were also some wounds of
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: the forehead and scalp. McKinney testified that the cuts on
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: the forehead and scalp looked like they were from a
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: blunt object. The wounds to the chest and neck were
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: caused by a knife. He went on to say, it
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: is likely that the chest wounds were by and large
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: the cause of her death. Prosecutor thank you doctor. That's
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: all halflin knew the prosecution was calling McKinley, so he
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: did a little homework beforehand.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: We're starting trial on the Tuesday following Memorial Day. I
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: know they're calling state medical examiner was coming up testify
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: what the fate wounds were describing. Then they were bringing
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: the doctor who treated her in the emergency room there,
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: and I called up the doctor and said, what are
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: you going to say tomorrow? And we talked about and
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: visited kind knew each other.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: What the doctor told him made Heflin realize he could
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: lay a trap. So in court, Hefflin gets up and
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: a cross examination asks McKinley about the knife. Question, have
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: you ever been shown the knife that the state removed
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: from the pond in this case? Answer? I have not
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: seen it, no, sir. Heflin turns to the prosecutors. Do
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: y'all have the knife? This is one of those moments
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: when the transcript is of little help. You have to
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: fill in the empty space. The prosecutors are anxious. They
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: thought the identity of the murder weapon was a settled fact,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: So why does Hefflin want McKinley to see it? They hesitate.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: The judge immediately intervenes, Can I see y'all at the bench.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Both sides huddle with the judge. The judge says to Hefflin,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: do you just want to show him the knife? Hefflin says,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: uh huh. The judge turns to the prosecutor, why don't
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: you get it? More hesitation from the prosecutors. The judge
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: repeats herself, y'all go get it. The prosecutor's rummage in
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: their evidence box, take it out. Heflin hands it to
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: the doctor. I asked Heflin to read aloud from the
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: trial transcripts from the crucial moment of his exchange with McKinley.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: You saw the wounds inflicted on miss fresh when she
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: came in host, didn't you, Yes, sir as said examining
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: that knife, do you have any opinion whether or not
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: that was the instrument that could have inflicted those wounds?
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: And McKinley answers, simply.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: I would frankly be surprised this was the knife based
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: on what I saw, or the sharp project based on
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: what I saw on the patient. I don't have any
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: further questions.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: The government's own witness testifies that the alleged murder weapon
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: isn't actually the murder weapon. The chest wounds are of
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: a much smaller knife, Yes, that was. The neck wounds
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: are consistent with the large knife that Kenny and John have.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: The chest wounds, which are the fatal wounds, seem to
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: be made by a smaller knife, and we can't find
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: the smaller knife. That's right from there, you would think
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: the reasonable doubts grow were Kenny Smith and John Parker
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: actually the ones who stabbed Elizabeth Sennate to death. The
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Elizabeth Sennett's body testifies
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: she described sentence chess wounds as rapidly fatal. When asked
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: about this by prosecutors, she said bluntly, I don't think
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: she lived very long after those wounds were inflicted. Once again,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: one of the government's own witnesses undermines their case. Think
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: about the timing. At eleven forty four in the morning,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Charles Sennett calls Ronnie May in hysterics to report that
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: his wife has been attacked. At twelve fifteen, the paramedics
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: discover that Elizabeth Senate has a pulse. At one pm,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: she arrives at Helen Keller Hospital and she's still alive. McKinley,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: in fact, doesn't pronounce her as dead until two five,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: a full hour later. But according to the prosecution's own
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: witness John Parker and Kenny Smith were back home in
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Florence by eleven thirty that morning. It's a thirty to
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: forty minute drive from Coondog Cemetery Road to Florence and
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: it's pouring rain outside. Timing doesn't work. They must have
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: left the Senate's house by at least eleven. There's no
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: way Parker and Smith could have inflicted rapidly fatal wounds
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: at mid morning if she was still alive at two
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: o'clock in the afternoon, meaning Smith and Parker must have
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: been long gone by the time the fatal wounds were inflicted.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Later in the trial, another pathologist who had examined the
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Senate autopsy made the same point. Here is heflin questioning him?
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Question if the evidence in this case shows that the
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Cherokee Rescue squad detected a heartbeat on Missus Senate at
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: approximately twelve to fifteen pm on March eighteen, nineteen eighty eight,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Based upon your years of experience as a pathologist and
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: your review of the exhibits that you just named, do
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: you have an opinion as to what time prior to
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: twelve fifteen pm the fatal wounds were delivered? Answer within
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: a very few minutes. The judge, the jury, the lawyers
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: on both sides, the journalists covering the trial are all
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: listening to this testimony with its unmistakable implication someone else
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: must have stabbed Elizabeth Sennett in the chest with a
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: smaller knife, and who was the only person at the
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: house at the time of the nine one one call
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Charles Sennet. If Senate does it, the timing makes a
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: lot more sense. He shows up after they've left, Stabs
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: calls Stabs and calls.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, or even had called and then yeah.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: A knife that doesn't fit, a timeline that makes no sense.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: And if the jury still had any lingering doubts about
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Charles Sennett's culpability.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: There was also what they.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Heard from Elizabeth Sennett's friend who had a front row
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: seat to the inner life of her marriage. That's after
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: the break. Susan Moseley was a nurse at a weight
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: loss clinic in Muscle Shoals. Elizabeth Senate was one of
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: her patients.
• 20:45
  Speaker 6: And I noticed she was extremely why introbility, no self staying.
• 20:57
  Speaker 6: What was a brilliant.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: Moseley sat down with a local reporter named Lee Hedgebeth,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: who has written about the Senate case and did some
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: interviews for us. She shared with him what she remembered
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: about Elizabeth in the months leading up to the murder.
• 21:12
  Speaker 6: So she would come once a we to the Planic
• 21:17
  Speaker 6: and I would boil her. I would weigh her to
• 21:19
  Speaker 6: her blood pressure, talk to her about okay, how's your
• 21:22
  Speaker 6: wait doing.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Mosey said that. Elizabeth said it didn't seem happy. She
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: would sit in the waiting room with a napkin crushed
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: in her fist. One day, Mosey decided to confront her.
• 21:37
  Speaker 6: And I said, Liz, and listen to him. You've been
• 21:42
  Speaker 6: going up and down and wait. So I'm going to
• 21:46
  Speaker 6: close this chart and I'm just gonna turn it down.
• 21:51
  Speaker 6: Lunch shut miles, puggade bread and how about you he
• 21:54
  Speaker 6: close your eyes and just tell me what you think.
• 22:01
  Speaker 6: It's the biggest problem. If you eat coctato, ships will
• 22:05
  Speaker 6: holly we every night we'll get baked one. So we
• 22:07
  Speaker 6: will do something to just let me know. And I
• 22:10
  Speaker 6: never need no bus. And I had the chair Russell
• 22:13
  Speaker 6: and I still every shovel and she said I need
• 22:18
  Speaker 6: a dope.
• 22:20
  Speaker 9: Open your eyes, she said, turn around here, and I'll
• 22:23
  Speaker 9: never forget. I've turned to my lap if the lamb
• 22:26
  Speaker 9: walked this, and she was standing there, and I'm gonna
• 22:29
  Speaker 9: tell you before we go any puddle, I'm gonna shit.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: I've gone to Barls p whaty bells pub about an inch.
• 22:42
  Speaker 10: Bute book.
• 22:46
  Speaker 6: Well, sure sleep would come.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: All in the chest.
• 22:54
  Speaker 6: Pap he thought her butts and legs to a certain
• 23:01
  Speaker 6: area where a skirt would.
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: Come the black.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Black the Senate was covered and bruises.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: I got up and have this whole boy. I didn't
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: ask no questions. I didn't ask anything. I had to
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: butt a little thing back up and now one like that.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: She said, down, you won't talk about this, and she
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: began to kill me. This story about her relationship.
• 23:32
  Speaker 6: With mister sid. She began to kill me, but she
• 23:40
  Speaker 6: was didn't know how, but that he was going.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: To kill her, and that she knew this, and she
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: had saved them her money for the bulls, and when
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: we were able to attorney, she was going to do this.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: One charge her four hundred dollars. She said, I worried
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: about this and worried about this. Once I'll do there,
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: she said, I know, I don't think they've all ever
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: be three with me with before who kills me.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: She didn't know how, but he was going to kill her,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: and she didn't think she could break free. Mosey said
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: she tried to help Elizabeth to find a way to
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: leave Charles, leave the marriage. She told Elizabeth, you can
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: come and live with me if you want. She tried
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: to help her find the words to communicate to her husband.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: It had to end.
• 24:54
  Speaker 11: We would say turn Alan literally right off the wood
• 24:57
  Speaker 11: thing and say okay, now say say this Charles, we
• 25:02
  Speaker 11: need to talk. I cannot continue to be alone with
• 25:06
  Speaker 11: all these Ltons. And they go to children lady and
• 25:10
  Speaker 11: taught a pego fathers where long's lay shirt a degree there.
• 25:16
  Speaker 11: Somebody is going to dig this out.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Is Mosley gave a deposition to investigators, and her testimony
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: was recounted to the jury by Ronnie May from the
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Colbert County Sheriff's office in the flat, effectless tone of
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: official speak. But even then, it's impossible to miss the
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: power of what she saw. Listen, this is what May said.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Missus Moseley said that she had been told by Missus
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Senatet that around Christmas of that year, Charles's family came
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: to visit and they had come up from Florida. Missus
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Sennett stated that some of the family went hunting. She
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: stated that Charles became extremely upset over some conversation between
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: he and members of the family, and Missus Sennett stated
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: that during that outburst of Christmas with his family members,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: he laid down on the floor and screamed and cried
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: and seemed to be paralyzed at different times. Missus Sennett
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: stated that this went on for some time at the house,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: and as a result, Charles's family left and returned to Florida.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Missus Moseley stated that Missus Senate told her during this
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: argument that Charles at one point had pulled and waved
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: a gun in the direction of his father. On one
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: of my visits to the Shoals, I sat in Tom
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Hefflin's living room and tried to make sense of all
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: the things that Jerry learned about Charles Sennet, who had
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: taken his own life so quickly after his wife's murder.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, of all of these three potential murderers, Parker
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Smith and Senate Senate is the only one with a
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: documented history of violent, highly aggressive behavior. He's the one
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: who beat his wife. To me, this is all about
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Charles Sennett, the whole thing. He sets the whole thing
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: in motion. He's the charismatic, persuasive adult. He's a predator.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: He really should be the one on trial.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: And without having gone back, maybe we didn't try him
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: hard enough.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: This, I think is what was on the police chief's
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: mind when he gossiped about the case with patterson Hood,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: lead singer at the drive by truckers at that drug
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: store in Florence.
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: I can't remember how thing they figured out that he that,
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: you know, the preacher had finished the job and all that,
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: but it was, you know, it was pretty obvious, pretty quick.
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: You know that those guys, they were fuck ups. They
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: took what was going to be a simple go in,
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: you know, kill her, make it look like a robbery,
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: and turned it into this gruesome thing. And she was
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: still alive, and so the preacher did what you know,
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: be then did? I mean's god, It's just it's just
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: such an awful story on every imaginable level, which.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Is why patterson Hood wrote the crucial verse, very.
• 28:21
  Speaker 7: Home word found misus die My was fall from her
• 28:31
  Speaker 7: grasp still she tried. No one ever knows what she
• 28:41
  Speaker 7: told him. Nobody told her it's the river and is
• 28:50
  Speaker 7: my friend fifteen blacks Fireplace Poker.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: To read the John Parker trial transcript with the full
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: knowledge of what would happen over the following decades is
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: to get angry, especially after what happened next the sentencing.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: What was it like when you were sequestered?
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: We spent eight days over here in the Ramada end.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Gary Highfield, foreman of the jury in the Parker trial,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: talking to my colleague Ben the daph Haffrey.
• 29:38
  Speaker 9: It was good.
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, they fed us, and I mean
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: we got to go home and get clothes and all
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: that kind of stuff and then you know, go down there.
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: But uh, they told us prepare for clothes for a week,
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: and we got them and you know, went to the hotel.
• 29:54
  Speaker 6: I mean it was all good.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: Did you guys hang out when you were.
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: We really they told us not to, you know, we
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: just kind of We did get to go to the pool.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: We did go to the pool one day.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Highfield was thirty years old, time married one kid and
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: another on the way sold insurance. He says looking back
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: that the news coverage of the killing made the job
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: of the defense very difficult.
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: I think it kind of handcuffed then because people had
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: an idea of what had happened. There was so much
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: put out there beforehand. And it's when you get something,
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: When a person gets something in their mind, you know,
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: it's kind of hard to change.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: So when they heard all of the discrepancies about the
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: timing and the weapon and the character of Charles Sennett.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: It was hard for them to square that with their
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: understanding of John Parker. He had agreed to go out
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: to Kundak Cemetery Road, he had admitted he brutally assaulted
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Sennate. A dispassionate reading of the child transcripts today
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: years later supports the idea that Parker should have been
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: acquitted of the murder charge, just gotten something like conspiracy
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: to commit murder or assault in the first degree. But
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: this was a year after the crime, and it was
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: very hard to be dispassionate.
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: But I mean, look, in that kind of situation, if
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: you had he he meant to kill her with that pipe.
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: I mean, if you mean to do something, you may
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: not actually be the one that committed the death, the
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: actual death, but torturing somebody that bad was.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: Man, it was awful.
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: Dude.
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: If you if you're not, even if you're not the
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: one that taught that was the one that fatally killed her,
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: you did you. I mean, it was proven that you
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: did every bit of that stuff.
• 32:09
  Speaker 6: This lady.
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: I mean, she might as well have been dead. But anyway,
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: I don't know, it's just I mean, I I don't
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: even like to think about it too much. I don't
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: know which one of them killed her. I really don't,
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: but I think both of them got what they probably deserved.
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: Lee legally and Moraley.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: They found Parker guilty of murder, so Parker's attorney, Tom
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Heiffeland lost that round, but the prosecution was asking for
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: the death penalty, and here the jury hesitated. The picture
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: that Hefflin had painted up his client as a mixed
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: up kid in over his head had left an impression.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: So the jury voted overwhelmingly ten to two for life
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: without parole. The jury didn't think Parker deserved to die.
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: I just don't think some of these people that were
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: on the jury, they didn't want that to be on
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: their conscious the rest of their life. Putting somebody into
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: the death penalty.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: At this point, the cascade could have stopped right. A
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: cascade is unique as a category of catastrophe because it
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: requires multiple stages in sequence. Remember our proverb from episode one,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: you need to nail the shoe, the horse, the rider,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: the message, and the battle for the kingdom to be imperiled.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: And if any of those stages fall out along the way,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: if the rider loses his horse but quickly finds another
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: The kingdom is fine. A life sentence for Parker brings
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: the whole saga to a close, because it means that
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: Kenny Smith would almost certainly get a life sentence as
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: well when his time came, and for all intents and purposes,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: the case would be closed. Justice would be served. The
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: rider found another horse. The kingdom is just fine. Except
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: that's not what happens why, Because this is Alabama. To
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: understand what happens next requires a brief digression into an
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: obscure legal doctrine known as judicial override. Judicial override arose
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: in the mid nineteen seventies in response to the Supreme
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Court's insistence that states be more rigorous in the way
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: they use the death penalty. The court wanteds standards rules,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: so the court divided capital cases into two stages. First,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: a jury was required to rule on the defendant's guilt. Then,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court said it wanted juris to do something
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: they don't do in normal criminal cases, decide on the
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: appropriate sentence. Alabama's response was to pass the law giving
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: the final word to the judge, and if the judge
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: wanted to override the jury's decision to turn say life
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: for the parole into the death penalty, they could. A
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: handful of states did something similar, like Florida, but in
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Florida the law said that the judge had to give
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: quote great weight to the jury's decision. In Alabama, a
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: judge could do whatever they wanted, and over the next
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: forty years, judges did just that. The override was used
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: over one hundred times in Alabama, almost always to allow
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: a judge to execute someone whose life the jury wanted
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: to save, with judges saying all kinds of crazy things
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: along the way, like the time an Alabama jury went
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: easy on a murderer because he was mentally disabled, and
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: the judge overrode them because and unquoting the sociological literature
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: suggests gypsies intentionally test low on standard IQ tests. So
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: in the Parker trial, the jury rules in the first
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: stage that he's guilty, and in the sentencing stage they
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: say no death penalty, life without parole. And what happens next.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: The judge Nka Johnson, the one with a portrait on
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: the wall in the courtroom, overrides the jury recommendation and
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: sentences Parker to death. Heflin was not exactly surprised when
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: you heard her override decision. Your reaction was you saw
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: it coming coming?
• 36:32
  Speaker 8: Yeah?
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: Do you did she think she? I think she. I
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: think she now she's generally a good judge. I think
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: she listened. I think she a you know, I'm not
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: saying she had totally prejudged it, but I think she.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: Damn it.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: She doesn't give in her sentencing decision. She doesn't really
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: give specific reasons as to why she's overriding the Jerry's recommendation.
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: In Alabama, you're not required to.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: The whole thing makes no sense, of course, if the
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court wanted the states to make the application of
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: the death penalty less arbitrary, how does just handing over
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: power to judges to do whatever they want for whatever
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: random reason fix the problem. Gary Highfield, the jury foreman,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: is still angry about it.
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: What reason did I have to spend a week over
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: a week in a jury listening to this when she
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: has the right to overturn my decision or decision? I mean,
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: I felt like there was no reason for May to
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: even be there. That's the problem I have with That's
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: the only problem I have with the whole thing, don't
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: I mean? I just felt I felt useless spending all
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: that time on a jury, and then she has the
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: right to come back. I mean, there's no sense even
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: having a jury if you're going to be able to
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: overturn the jury, if a judge can overternal jury.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: Parker gets sent to death row at Donaldson Prison in Bessemer, Alabama,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: just outside of Birmingham. This is nineteen eighty nine. His
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: lawyers keep him alive, filing appeal. After appeal, thirteen years pass,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: he's still alive and he gets one final chance by
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: way of a new Supreme Court case. In ring the
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Arizona the court throws out Arizona's practice of allowing judges
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: to make sentencing decisions independently of the jury in death
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: penalty cases. They said it violates the sixth Amendment, which reads,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: in case you've forgotten, in all criminal prosecutions, the accused
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: by an impartial jury. If your life is at stake,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: then what happens to you shouldn't be left up to
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: the whims of whatever judge you were assigned. Only a
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: jury should be allowed to make the call of life
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: or death, and that protection is right there in the constitution.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: In response, Indiana, which had an override statute on its books,
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: shuts it down. Everyone on death row in Indiana who
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: was there because of a judge's override gets their original
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: life sentence back. All eyes turned to Alabama. Surely they
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: have to follow suit, right, John Parker's going to live.
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: When I heard that it was done as John's come,
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: my faithing was John was off death row.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: This was two thousand and two. For the next eight years,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: Parker got up every morning waiting for the state of
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Alabama to acknowledge the fact that the law that put
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: him on death row was unconstitutional. He waits and waits.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: Do you know when Alabama finally got around to abolishing
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: judicial override twenty seventeen, when it was too late to
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: make any difference for Parker. In fact, it took Alabama
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: forty one years to come to their senses, and then
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: they couldn't help themselves. They say this reversal only applies
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: to future cases. Anyone who's already on death row because
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: of a judge's override in the previous forty two years
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: stays on death row. In the years before the Civil War,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: there was a phrase Southern slave owners would use to
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: describe their practice of owning their workforce. They called it
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: their peculiar institution. Euphemism a nice way of saying that
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: things were done a little differently in their part of
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: the world. Judicial override is, I think, a very good
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: example of another Alabama peculiarity. And if you are at
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: all curious about how this particular peculiarity works, I would
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: direct you to the discussion that took place on April seventeenth,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, in a hearing room at the Alabama
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: State Capitol in Montgomery.
• 41:06
  Speaker 10: Helus.
• 41:07
  Speaker 8: Gentlemen, I want to welcome you to the House Judiciary Committee.
• 41:13
  Speaker 8: We're glad to have each and every one of you
• 41:15
  Speaker 8: here with us today.
• 41:17
  Speaker 10: Thank Misterior member.
• 41:18
  Speaker 8: Mister England, you want to talk about twenty seven.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, Representative England is Chris England, that rarest of species
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: in Alabama. A Democrat represents Tuscaloosa. He was the co
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: sponsor of the legislation back in twenty seventeen that ended
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: judicial override. Now he wants to make an amendment to
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: that law, House Bill twenty seven.
• 41:42
  Speaker 10: What this bill does or seeks to do, is to
• 41:47
  Speaker 10: make that application retroactive, so that I believe thirty three
• 41:50
  Speaker 10: individuals that are currently sitting on death row as a
• 41:53
  Speaker 10: result of override could be resentenced.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: Representative England says, we've all finally agreed that judicial override
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: violates the constitutional right to a jury trial in death
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: Bendley cases. So we should go back and restore the's
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: decision in the case of all those people who are
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: only on death row, because it took us forty years
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: to realize that back in nineteen seventy five, we made
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: a big mistake.
• 42:18
  Speaker 8: Mister England. I hear what you're saying, and I understand
• 42:20
  Speaker 8: that an individual tride today would be would be subject
• 42:23
  Speaker 8: to a different set of laws, and I've got you.
• 42:25
  Speaker 8: But the individuals that were shod part of the time
• 42:27
  Speaker 8: we changed the law were subject to those laws that
• 42:33
  Speaker 8: were in effect at that time, and the law that
• 42:35
  Speaker 8: was in effect at that time allowed judicial override, and
• 42:38
  Speaker 8: these judges and their discretion overrode.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: Then comes this priceless bit of nonsense.
• 42:46
  Speaker 8: God squarely, it's very difficult for me to second yes
• 42:53
  Speaker 8: or an effect override that which the judge overwrote.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: At this there are lots of nods up and down
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: the committee This is the Alabama peculiarity. I have Southern
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: friends who get mad correctly at the way Northerners always
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: bring up slavery or get all worked up because people
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: drive around with Confederate flags. But come on, this isn't
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: a random thing. This is a characteristic. There is something
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: in the psyche of places like Alabama that really, really,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: really doesn't want to address the consequences of past moral failures.
• 43:28
  Speaker 8: Hi, is there is there a motion to give this
• 43:32
  Speaker 8: bill a favorable report?
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: Thank you?
• 43:34
  Speaker 10: In a second.
• 43:35
  Speaker 8: Okay, we've had plenty of discussion. You asked for a rogue.
• 43:38
  Speaker 8: I'll go ahead, Brandy.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: Maybe you see where this is going. They vote it down,
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: there will be no overriding of the override. It seems
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: really clear to me that John Forest Parker didn't kill
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Sennett. He was back home in Florence when she
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: received the stab wounds that killed her. He should never
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: been convicted of murder, but he was. And if he
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: was going to be convicted, he should have served out
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: the sentence given to him by a jury of his
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: peers without parole. But he didn't. And once he was
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: on death row, Alabama should have ended the practice that
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: robbed him of a just result, but they didn't get
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: around to it for over forty years, and even then
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: they couldn't bring themselves to override the override. John Forrest
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: Parker never stood a chance next time on the Alabama murders.
• 44:51
  Speaker 12: This is how lethal injection actually kills you. It kills
• 44:55
  Speaker 12: you by burning your lungs up. So the last thing
• 44:58
  Speaker 12: that you know, you may know, is that you're on
• 45:01
  Speaker 12: fire from the inside and the blood is filling up
• 45:04
  Speaker 12: your lungs as you die. Is this too graphic?
• 45:09
  Speaker 13: He Look, if you come back here and start coming
• 45:13
  Speaker 13: and these guys ask you to go all the way
• 45:15
  Speaker 13: with them, you gotta be willing to go. And I said,
• 45:17
  Speaker 13: what's all the way? And he said, you know, if
• 45:19
  Speaker 13: they're executions and if they ask you to be with them,
• 45:22
  Speaker 13: you need you can't. You need to be willing to go,
• 45:24
  Speaker 13: and if you're not, just don't come.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Revision's History is produced by ben Da dapfh Haffrey, Lucy Sullivan,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: and Nina Bird Lawrence. Additional reporting by ben Da Dafh Haffrey,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: and Lee Hedgsbeth. Our editor is Karen Schakerji. Fact checking
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: by Kate Ferby. Our Executive producer is Jacob Smith. Engineering
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: by Nina Bird Lawrence, Production support from Luke LeMond. Original
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: scoring by Luis Garra with Paul Brainard and Jimmy Bodd.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: Sound design and additional music by Jake Gorsky. H'm Malcolm
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Glabam