Supreme court will not review Arthur appeal

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to review the death sentence appeal of Tommy Arthur, a Colbert County man who once came within seven hours of execution for a 1982 murder-for-hire killing.

The justices did not comment as they turned down the motion of the 65-year-old Arthur, who was convicted in the killing of Troy Wicker of Muscle Shoals.

"This doesn't sound good for him. It looks like the end of the line for his appeals,'' said Tuscumbia attorney William Hovater, who along with Muscle Shoals attorney Alan Gargis, represented Arthur at his second capital murder trial.

In his appeal, Arthur argued that he has been unable to present courts with evidence of his innocence, including an alibi from two men who reportedly saw him around the time of the killing.

Arthur has now run out of appeals, 25 years after Wicker was killed.

Clay Crenshaw, chief of the capital appeals section for the state

Attorney General's office said he plans to file a motion this week with the state Supreme Court to have an execution date set "because his appeals have been exhausted."

"He can ask for some kind of motion for reconsideration at the U.S. Supreme Court," he said.

Crenshaw said a condemned man can ask for stay or reversal up until the time of execution. "There's no lack of ways an inmate can try to stay an execution," he said.

Crenshaw said there's no way to estimate when the Alabama Supreme Court will issue an execution date.

Arthur came within seven hours of execution in April 2001 when a stay was granted on his claim that he did not have an attorney to handle his appeals.

The state attorney general's office argued that the evidence considered by a jury demonstrated his guilt in the shooting death of Wicker. Courts later refused his bid for a new hearing.

Arthur's first two convictions and death sentences in the Wicker killing were overturned on appeal.

Hovater said he had a deal worked out for Arthur to plead to life in prison without parole. Instead, Arthur turned down the deal Friday before the trial was to begin Monday.

Although Arthur was convicted in the second trial, Hovater handled the appeal and managed to get the conviction reversed.

In the third trial, Hovater said Arthur used two Jefferson County lawyers.

"Sometime during that trial, he got cross with them and he took over the case himself,'' Hovater said.

Arthur was convicted a third time and sentenced to death in 1991. After his conviction in that trial, he asked the judge to sentence him to death.

The judge did just that.

Arnold Levine, a New York lawyer who represented Arthur when the stay was granted in 2001, said then that no evidence connected Arthur to the crime except the testimony of Wicker's wife, Judy. She testified that she had sex with Arthur before the killing and paid him $10,000 from her husband's life insurance policy.

She was convicted as an accomplice and was released after serving 10 years of a life sentence.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Arthur's motions last year, including his claim that his trial and appellate attorneys were ineffective.

Tuscumbia lawyer James "Jap'' Patton prosecuted Arthur during his first trial.

"There's a lot of people who remember Tommy Arthur,'' Patton said. "He is one of a kind, a very unique individual.''

Patton said Arthur was a very "dangerous'' person at that time.

"There's going to be a lot of people pleased with (the U.S. Supreme court's) decision,'' Patton said.

Sheffield Police Chief Doug Aycock was an investigator at the time and worked with Muscle Shoals police on the case.

"That's one of those cases you'll always remember,'' Aycock said. "You have cases where there were things about it that will always stick with you. This is one of those.''

Aycock said he wasn't surprised by the Supreme Court's decision.

"It's been tried three times and the same outcome. It would have surprised me if they had overruled the decision,'' he said. "(Arthur) is one of those people you run across that you don't forget.''

Crenshaw said Arthur isn't the longest-serving death row inmate in Alabama, although the crime "happened a long time ago."

Tom Smith can be reached at 332-0140 or tom.smith@timesdaily.com.

Montgomery Bureau Chief Dana Beyerle contributed to this report.