An Alabama man, Alvin Ray Allen, found himself on the wrong side of the law as Mobile County jurors declared him guilty of the 1980 murder of 19-year-old Sandra Elaine Williams. They also suspected that the young woman had been a victim of sexual assault.
Just a day before, Allen's defense attorney drew a comparison between his client and Tom Robinson, a wrongly accused Black character defended by Atticus Finch in Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird." In the novel, Robinson faces an unjust conviction by a racially biased Alabama jury despite being innocent of the crime he was accused of, which was raping a white woman.
Attorney Dennis Knizley, representing Allen, hesitated to make this comparison, acknowledging that the real-life jury was different from the one in the book. He assured them that they would be fair, just, and follow the rules.
However, the state prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Ashley Rich, was quick to rebut the comparison, stating that this case was not like "To Kill a Mockingbird." She emphasized that the times had changed significantly since 1980, as modern technology like DNA testing was now available.
Sandra Williams' lifeless body was discovered on a dead-end street in Mobile's Toulminville neighborhood, far from her own apartment. The prosecutor argued that if law enforcement had been trying to frame a Black man for the murder, Allen, who lived near the victim, would have been a suspect from the start. However, he wasn't considered a suspect for a decade, and the case had gone cold.
It was only in recent years, after the victim's family pleaded for a reopening of the case and the retesting of evidence for DNA, that progress was made. The state eventually connected Allen to the crime through bodily fluids found on Williams' jeans.
The prosecutor claimed that Allen had forced Williams into a sexual encounter at knifepoint before brutally murdering her with over 15 stab wounds.
The defense argued that Allen and Williams had a consensual but secretive relationship due to the prevailing racism in Alabama in 1980. They suggested that Williams feared the consequences of being in a relationship with a Black man in that environment.
Racial tensions and violence were significant back then, making Allen reluctant to cooperate with law enforcement. He refused to provide DNA or fingerprints and evaded investigators. When he was finally arrested in 2019, it took a SWAT team breaking down his door to take him into custody.
Knizley cited incidents of racial violence from that era, including the use of a noose by the Mobile Police Department and a Ku Klux Klan lynching, to emphasize the real-life experiences Black people endured.
Despite these reminders of the era's racism, the jury swiftly returned a guilty verdict after just 30 minutes of deliberation.
This marked Allen's second trial for Williams' murder, with the initial trial in 2019 resulting in a mistrial due to the jury's inability to reach a unanimous verdict.
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