Alabama: Keith Gavin executed – despite flawed defense in trial and appeals
On Thursday evening, 64-year-old Keith Edmund Gavin was executed by lethal injection by the US state of Alabama.
He had been found guilty by a jury vote of 10 to 2 of shooting a 68-year-old man in 1998 while he was withdrawing cash from an ATM.
The central prosecution witness in Keith Gavin’s case was his cousin and accomplice. Gavin has denied his guilt.
Robert Dunham, former director of the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) and now head of the Death Penalty Policy Project (DPPP), stated as an expert witness in a virtual vigil organized by Death Penalty Action (DPA) that there were significant deficiencies in the quality of Gavin’s defense, both in the original trial and in subsequent appeals.
Keith Gavin handwrote his final submissions himself. They were rejected in one case on the grounds that Gavin had not paid the associated court fee – he was not indigent and therefore not exempt from the fee.
Keith Gavin was a devout Muslim and was under the spiritual guidance of an imam. Gavin was forced to forgo his last meal after the imam refused to bring him a halal meal that complied with the dietary laws of Islam.
After all, Alabama had finally managed to agree to forego the usual autopsy after the execution because this would contradict Gavin’s faith.
The victim’s son said that his family had long since forgiven Keith Gavin, but that he had not shown enough remorse.