David P. Wilson

Mr David P. Wilson has been under sentence of death since 2008 in the Alabama Department of Corrections at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. He is currently represented by Professor Bernard E. Harcourt who is the Corliss Lamont Professor of Law and Civil Liberties at Columbia University. He conducts his work for Mr. Wilson under the Death Penalty Litigation section of the Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought. The history of the case cited as ‘David Wilson vs. John Q Hamm’ and the legal documentation can be found here.

Professor Harcourt is currently litigating two lawsuits on behalf of Mr Wilson. Firstly, a habeas corpus case challenging Mr. Wilson’s conviction and death sentence, and secondly, a civil rights action authorized by 42 U.S.C. §1983 challenging the nitrogen hypoxia method of execution in Alabama under the 8^th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and international law.

The habeas challenge concerns, inter alia, the right to a fair trial, prosecutorial misconduct, racially discriminatory peremptory strikes, ineffective assistance of defense counsel, and the failure to investigate and present Mr. Wilson’s autism and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder diagnoses.

There are significant questions concerning the safety of the verdict as Mr. Wilson was subject to an illegal search and arrest, Mr. Wilson’s trial counsel failed to consult psychiatric experts about his Asperger’s Syndrome, and the prosecutors suppressed a co-defendant’s letter admitting to repeatedly beating the decedent and withheld the letter from the defense for almost 20-years. This co-defendant has subsequently been potentially linked with another murder. Mr. Wilson had received ineffective assistance of counsel. The lawyers conducted minimal investigations and met with Mr. Wilson for only five hours before the trial which was an insufficient time to adequately create a ‘theory of defence,’ prepare for cross examination of witnesses, comprehend the socio-medical and intergenerational background of Mr. Wilson. Thus there was not an adequate preparation for the guilt phase of the trial, nor was there meaningful mitigation during the sentencing phase. This was a failure to meet the minimum standards of adequate representation.

The capital proceedings, including the jury selection and trial, only lasted for three days, and the court took only one further day to consider all the aggravating and mitigating evidence before determining the appropriateness of the death sentence. By a reasonable standard of fair proceedings this is an insufficient time to assess whether a person should live or die as punishment for a criminal activity.

There is therefore significant evidence to demonstrate that the trial judge, the prosecutors, and the defense counsel had failed to ensure that Mr. Wilson would receive a fair trial before he was sentenced to death.

Subsequently the State of Alabama wants to execute an autistic man who did not receive a fair trial and whose guilt is now significantly called into question, through an insufficiently tested method of execution which many experts consider constitutes torture, and the five previous Alabama executions using this method demonstrate the probability of this damning fact.

The method of death is through forced nitrogen gas asphyxiation. Therefore the §1983 action concerning the deprivation of civil rights seeks to enjoin the State of Alabama from executing Mr. Wilson through the use of nitrogen gas as it would violate his rights under the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which prohibits ‘cruel and unusual punishment,’ as well as his right to be free from torture under international law.

Submissions to the United Nations and Responses

To inform the court assessment of the constitutionality of the use of nitrogen gas in executions the legal proceedings now include submissions on the United States’ and the State of Alabama’s obligations under international law.

Professor Jon Yorke has filed Complaints on behalf of Mr. Wilson within the U.N.’s Special Procedures in which he built upon his submission in Mr Kenneth Smith's case in 2024. The United Nations’ Special Procedures and Ravina Shamdasani, the Chief Spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) had expressed alarm and horror at Alabama using nitrogen gas to kill death row inmates. They called upon the state to cease using this method in order to allow a transparent process to determine the individualised physical and psychological impact of forced inhalation of nitrogen gas and the duration of the time to die. It is very likely that the previous executions demonstrate that this method imposes torture.

To date the U.N.’s requests have received an acknowledgement from the federal government but there has not been a meaningful engagement with the issues by the state government of Alabama.

The submissions to the United Nations and the responses are:

Legal Proceedings on International Law in the Civil Rights Lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. §1983

Due to the parallel submissions in the U.N. on behalf of Mr. Wilson, Professor Yorke is uniquely situated to inform the state and federal courts on the international law implications in using nitrogen gas asphyxiation as a method of execution.

In the filing of the briefs he has been represented by Professor Anjli Parrin, Director of the Global Human Rights Clinic, University of Chicago Law School, Professor Gulika Reddy, Director of the International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic, Stanford Law School, and Shaw Drake, Clinical Supervising Attorney and Lecturer in Law, Stanford Law School. The Counsel of Record is Professor LaJuana S. Davis, Judge J. Russell McElroy Professor of Law and Director of the Innocence Law Clinic, Samford University.

In these proceedings Professor Yorke has submitted a motion to intervene under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A. It is argued that both the intervention as of right and the right of permissive intervention have been satisfied.

Rule 24. Intervention

(a) Intervention of Right. On timely motion, the court must permit anyone to intervene who:

(1) is given an unconditional right to intervene by a federal statute; or

(2) claims an interest relating to the property or transaction that is the subject of the action, and is so situated that disposing of the action may as a practical matter impair or impede the movant's ability to protect its interest, unless existing parties adequately represent that interest.

(b) Permissive Intervention.

(1) In General. On timely motion, the court may permit anyone to intervene who:

(A) is given a conditional right to intervene by a federal statute; or

(B) has a claim or defense that shares with the main action a common question of law or fact.

The briefs concerning Professor Yorke’s right to intervene are currently submitted for consideration by Chief Judge Emily C. Marks of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, Northern Division.

The court submissions on these proceedings are:

David P. Wilson

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