Group fights Arthur execution

Convicted killer Tommy Arthur is getting help from Amnesty International in his effort to avoid being executed later this month.

Amnesty International, a worldwide organization that opposes the death penalty, is urging its members to write Alabama Gov. Bob Riley in hopes of persuading him to stop Arthur's Sept. 27 execution. The organization wants to postpone the execution until DNA testing can be done on evidence collected during the 1982 investigation into the slaying of Muscle Shoals resident Troy Wicker.

Arthur has been convicted three times of capital murder in connection with the case. Through appeals and new trials, Arthur has spent about 25 years on death row.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently denied his latest appeal in the case, prompting the state to set an execution date.

Arthur's attorneys have two active appeals in federal court, one arguing that lethal injection, the execution method used by Alabama, is unconstitutional. The other involves a plea to have DNA testing performed on evidence collected during the investigation.

Amnesty International officials said Arthur is potentially innocent and has not had a judicial hearing on evidence that could raise doubts about his guilt. They say evidence found at the crime scene has not been tested and no physical evidence links Arthur to Wicker's house, where Wicker was shot once in the eye on Feb. 1, 1982.

"Given the many unanswered questions in this case, it would be absurd for Alabama not to test all the DNA," said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA. "When Alabama refuses to examine available evidence, it might as well say, 'We don't care if we actually get it right.' "

Clay Crenshaw, director of the capital litigation section of the Alabama Attorney General's Office, said Wednesday the additional testing would not prove Arthur's innocence.

Crenshaw also suggests these latest appeals aren't an effort to find truth, but is another means of avoiding Arthur's sentence. "They've known they can file a suit in federal court for DNA testing since 2001," he said. "If they are truly interested in wanting to know the results, why not do it four or five years ago, instead of right before the execution date?"

The victim's wife, Judy Wicker, originally told investigators that a black man broke into their house. She said she was raped and knocked unconscious. She added that when she awoke, her husband was dead.

Wicker changed her testimony as part of a guilty plea in the case, leading to her conviction on murder charges. She later testified in Arthur's trial that she hired him to kill her husband so she could collect the insurance.

Arthur's appeal for DNA testing seeks to have Judy Wicker's bloodstained clothing examined along with rape evidence and hair samples.

"Thomas Arthur was convicted only on circumstantial evidence and the testimony of a woman who was helping her own parole, yet Alabama is still resisting efforts to establish the truth," said Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn, director of Amnesty International's USA's Program to Abolish the Death Penalty. "Serious evidence in capital cases should not go unexamined."

The organization states 120 wrongful convictions in capital cases have been overturned in the United States since 1977 as a result of modern DNA

technology.

Crenshaw said Wicker's original statement that she was raped and knocked out turned out to be false, so a rape kit wouldn't prove anything. He said there also has been the question of hair fibers in her house, but if those weren't Arthur's, that still wouldn't show he was factually innocent. There also was a bloody shirt of Wicker's that wasn't tested.

Those items weren't used to convict Arthur. Instead, Crenshaw said testimony and other evidence were used, and three juries convicted Arthur.

"To set up the crime, Arthur actually hit Judy Wicker with a pretty good blow," Crenshaw said. "He knocked out a couple of her teeth and she bled onto her shirt. They want to test that. There's no reason to expect anything other than that's Judy Wicker's blood.

"Her credibility was impeached at the trial, but every piece of testimony from her was corroborated by other evidence and testimony."

He said an afro wig was found in Judy Wicker's car, which is consistent with her original story that a black person did it. "So obviously Arthur was trying to disguise himself."

He said other evidence included the fact that Arthur's boss didn't know his whereabouts on the day of the murder, even though Arthur was on work-release. Evidence also showed that Arthur checked in at 6 a.m. to go to work and returned to the Decatur Work-Release Center at 7:50 p.m.

On the day before the murder, Arthur obtained 22-caliber long-rifle bullets - the type that killed Troy Wicker, Crenshaw said.

Also, Judy Wicker testified Arthur was carrying a gun in a garbage bag on the day of the murder, Crenshaw said. The woman he met for lunch testified that he was late for lunch, and at one point he threw away a garbage bag that contained a bulky object. She asked what it was, and Arthur replied he was getting rid of memories.

In addition, $2,000 was found on Arthur's property at the work-release center, which corroborates the story that the crime was a murder for hire, Crenshaw said.

Bernie Delinski can be reached at 740-5739 or bernie.delinski@timesdaily.com.