Turning memories into art with people who have lost loved ones to violence

By Leah Nelson, Research Director


The Memorial Chair event included people who had lost loved ones to violence and invited them to decorate folding chairs in their memory

Alabama Appleseed spent much of 2022 and 2023 traveling the state and talking with victims of violent crime. We focused on people from communities that are disproportionately affected by violence but whose voices are not usually centered in Alabama’s endless and endlessly political discussions about crime and punishment. We asked them about themselves and their experiences – and we asked them what they needed in the aftermath of violent victimization.

Pam Moser decorate a chair in honor of her son Brian Rigsby who died in October 2023 while incarcerated at Staton Correctional Facility

Since then, we’ve been finding ways to turn some of those needs into realities. On a policy level, we’ve supported the Crime Victims Compensation Commission (CVCC) in its request for a more sustainable form of funding to ensure quick responses to people in need of emergency assistance with things like funeral expenses for loved ones who died by homicide.

Then there’s the personal work. More than anything else, the survivors and victims we met with needed to talk. They needed professional counseling. They needed grief support groups. They asked us – especially our community navigator who facilitated focus groups and who lost a son to violence herself – to come back and keep the conversation going.

On Saturday, March 2, at St. Peter A.M.E. Church on the west side of Montgomery, we hosted the first of what we hope will be many healing art events.

“If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair,” Rep. Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress, exhorted Americans who wanted to get involved in the political process. 

Decorating a chair for a loved one lost to violence

At Saturday’s Memorial Chair event, we invited people who have lost loved ones to violence to decorate folding chairs in memory of their loved ones. The group included people whose loved ones died by homicide in the free world and those who lost loved ones died preventable deaths in prison. After they created their usable works of art, they broke bread together around a table inside St Peter A.M.E. and offered each other words of comfort and encouragement. There were tears, but also smiles, embraces, and determination to support each other and do everything in their power to make this place we all live in safer and more compassionate.

Appleseed wants to see this project grow and evolve. If you would like to help us host a memorial chair event with people in your community who have lost loved ones to homicide and violence, please reach out to admin@alabamaappleseed.org.

By Eddie Burkhalter, Appleseed Researcher


Correctional Officers (from ADOC website)

Alabama’s prison staffing crisis has an outsized role in the violence and record number of deaths seen across the state’s prisons, most everyone agrees. New data obtained by Appleseed shows yet another reason prison staffing remains dangerously low: the large number of terminated prison employees – 366 Department of Corrections staff fired from January 2018 to November 2023.

The list includes only people fired from the department, not retirements or resignations, and was provided following a records request by Appleseed. Among the 366, at least 19 had been charged with work-related crimes, including contraband and assaulting incarcerated people with batons, for striking an incarcerated man “in the facial area with an open hand and push[ing] the inmate into a wall,” and for hitting another incarcerated man on the jaw with a closed fist “requiring surgery for his injury,” according to court records. 

Still another former prison worker was charged with assault for causing injury to an incarcerated man by “kicking and/or punching him” and two officers were arrested in May 2022 and charged with criminally negligent homicide in the death of 27-year-old Jason Kirkland, who was found dead after he became stuck inside his cell’s small metal door used to pass food through and asphyxiated. 

An officer was arrested in May 2022 and charged with multiple crimes in connection with allegedly attempting to smuggle marijuana inside a frozen Poweraid bottle into Fountain Correctional Facility. Another officer was arrested in February 2020 after attempting to bring seven ounces of marijuana, three ounces of meth, two knives and other contraband into Fountain prison. That officer was convicted in federal court and was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison. 

But those 19 former ADOC employees charged with work-related crimes don’t come close to painting the entire picture of corruption and violence at the hands of ADOC employees; many former ADOC officers and staff quit before they’re fired, as Appleseed’s review of court records showed. Records for a former officer charged with assault for allegedly beating a man with a baton at Donaldson Correctional Facility in 2021 showed that two other former officers were also charged with assault in that incident, but those two officers weren’t listed by ADOC as having been fired during that time. Additionally, challenges with securing evidence and witnesses for incidents that occur in a correctional setting result in corrupt staff getting quietly pushed out the door rather than criminally prosecuted.

Equal Justice Initiative notes that, “since 2019, EJI has identified at least 89 ADOC employees who have been criminally charged or administratively sanctioned for misconduct within Alabama prisons. In 30 of these cases, the offending officers were supervisors.”

In one case, a lieutenant with 20 years experience attacked Victor Russo, a 60-year-old incarcerated man, who later died.  Mohammad Jenkins, who was a shift commander at Donaldson Correctional Facility, pleaded guilty to using excessive force on Russo, then lying afterwards to cover up his abuse, according to the United States Department of Justice. “Specifically, on Feb. 16, 2022, Jenkins willfully deprived inmate V.R. of his right to be free from excessive force by kicking him, hitting him, spraying him with chemical spray, striking him with a can of chemical spray and striking him with a shoe, while V.R. was restrained inside of a holding cell and not posing a threat,” the DOJ stated. 

ADOC’s staffing problems, which have been a driver of the violence and death inside Alabama’s prisons, have plagued ADOC for decades, and recent court orders to improve have gone unanswered. From December 2017 until Sept. 30, 2020, the state showed an increase of just 25 officers over nearly two years, which was less than 1.5 percent of a judge’s order to add 2,000 correctional officers by February 2022, and the staffing problem has only worsened. ADOC’s quarterly reports show total security staffing fell from 2,102 in December 2021 to 1,763 by September 2023, even after massive recruiting efforts, pay raises and incentives. 

Violence could lead to early releases

Despite such a significant number of terminations, the assaultive and criminal behavior by ADOC officers keeps occurring. Now, violence against incarcerated people in Alabama is leading lawyers to request early release based on the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) inability to keep people in its custody safe.

This month, a grand jury indicted Limestone Correctional officers Samuel Dial and Jesse Cobb with felony assault for what court records allege is the beating of a 74-year-old incarcerated man in the head with a “broom handle.” Less than two weeks later, the man’s attorney on Feb. 21 filed a motion asking the court to reconsider releasing his client early because of the assault. Hospital records attached to the filing show the man suffered an intracranial hemorrhage and an abrasion to his left arm. 

The two officers remained employed by ADOC as of Friday were working at “non-contact posts” pending the outcome of ADOC’s criminal investigation, the department told Appleseed.

Despite signs of repeated, unlawful behavior by one man long before this episode, he remained a law enforcement officer at the ADOC. That officer,  Jesse Cobb, has been arrested four times since 2013, charged twice with driving under the influence, once for leaving the scene of an accident and twice for public intoxication. 

The earliest of Cobb’s DUI charges was dismissed for reasons court records do not make clear. Cobb in August 2014 pleaded guilty to a separate DUI charge in which court records state he was driving his motorcycle drunk and told the arresting officer “I work for the department of corrections.” The arresting officer in his notes said that Cobb was “using his job to establish dominance.” Cobb received a 180 day suspended jail sentence and was ordered to attend DUI school. The 2014 was later appealed and the charge dropped by the City of Athens, court records show. 

Cobb in July 2018 pleaded guilty to public intoxication and received a $50 fine plus court costs, and he was again arrested in January 2022 and charged with leaving the scene of an accident, public intoxication and failure to report an accident. Court records state he crashed into a guardrail, left the scene and the next day met with a state trooper and said he left the scene “because he was drunk.” Cobb pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and to public intoxication and received a one year suspended jail sentence and two years unsupervised probation. 

“You’re just making your problem bigger, in a new building.”

Michele Deitch, director of the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab at the University of Texas, told Appleseed that the staffing problem itself can result in officers breaking the law. 

“In a low staffed environment, officers are more likely to want to make deals with incarcerated people to try to keep the peace there. So it’s like, Oh, I’ll bring you in some contraband,” Deitch said. “And then there’s also the fact that low staffing allows more bad things to happen inside: Not enough people to notice that staff are bringing in contraband.” 

Appleseed regularly receives videos from inside prisons showing open drug use, assaults, injured and dying people and with no officers in sight. 

ADOC did raise pay for correctional officers and trainees last year, but Deitch said it’s a mistake to think that it’s solely a salary issue. “Counterintuitively it’s better to raise the standards for what it takes to be an officer, raise the educational level, raise the age, raise what kind of things you’re looking for,” Deitch said. “Because then it makes the job more appealing to the kind of people you actually would want to have working there.”

The most important change ADOC could make to improve hiring, she said, is to improve prison conditions, and proponents of Alabama’s new under-construction $1.08 billion prison say that’s what’s needed to fix the state’s deadly prison crisis, but Deitch cautioned about placing all bets on that new prison building. 

“Building a new building doesn’t do anything about the culture. This is a system that has a very dysfunctional culture. It’s a culture that supports violence. It’s a culture that supports the bringing in of contraband. Breaking of rules. All sorts of violations, and unless you change that culture, the new building isn’t going to do anything,” Deitch said. “You’re just making your problem bigger, in a new building.”

by Elaine Burdeshaw, Policy Associate


It’s no secret that Alabama is facing serious problems in our prisons and criminal justice system. In 2023 alone, 325 people died in Alabama Department of Corrections custody– making our prison mortality rate the highest in the nation and five times the national average. We face outdated laws and excessive sentencing that have put older people behind bars for far too long; creating exorbitant medical costs that we as taxpayers pay for, even though this population is the least likely to reoffend and the most expensive to incarcerate. We spend zero dollars on reentry, despite the fact that thousands of people leave correctional custody every year with a few dollars, a bus ticket and no support. All of that, and we’re set to spend over a billion dollars on a new prison that won’t solve all our problems. 

And yet, despite all the fires, there are people working to put them out, and every day Alabamians who care to be a part of tackling these things head on. At Appleseed, part of our job, yes, is to point out where the problems are, but our most important role is to help come up with solutions to those problems. This session Appleseed is bringing three legislative proposals that we believe are effective and viable solutions to addressing the prison crisis and improving public safety.

The first is our Second Chance Bill, HB29, which would give judges the authority to review the old cases of individuals sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for crimes where no one was physically injured. 

There are over 200 people in Alabama who have been sentenced to die in prison for crimes where no one was physically injured under the state’s Habitual Felony Offender Act. Sentenced in the three-strikes laws era of the 80s and 90s, most of these people are over the age of 60 and will have served at least 24 years by the time the bill were to pass. They’re also the most expensive to incarcerate and the least likely to reoffend. These individuals have served decades in Alabama’s dangerous prisons and still have shown profound rehabilitation. Simply put, these sentences are no longer fair or necessary, and they deserve another chance and the opportunity to live the rest of their lives free. For more information about our Second Chance bill and work, please visit secondchancealabama.org

The second is our Prison Oversight Bill, which would create an independent ombuds office within the Executive Branch to monitor conditions inside facilities, create necessary transparency for the public, Governor, and legislators, and work to improve the safety and well-being of incarcerated people and Corrections staff.

Since the Department of Justice declared all Alabama prisons for men unconstitutional and sued the Alabama Department of Corrections in 2020, the department has failed to improve and maintain livable, humane conditions within those facilities. In many ways, the conditions have only gotten worse. Incarcerated people are dying at tremendous rates, staffing has hardly improved, drugs and contraband are rampant, and violence continues to keep everyone inside unsafe. It’s past time to create oversight for the ADOC, and the Prison Oversight Bill will help bring what has been absent within the department for a long time– transparency. 

Our third and final priority is state funding for reentry housing. $500k in the State Bureau of Pardons and Paroles budget would provide around 50 people 6-12 months of housing in a Jefferson County reentry pilot program. 

Currently the state of Alabama provides zero dollars for reentry, even though thousands of people are released from correctional custody every year. We know from our own reentry work with clients and from research that when someone has a stable place to eat, sleep, shower, and receive mail everything else becomes a whole lot easier. We also know from the experiences of other states that  provide state funding for reentry services that recidivism and rates of reoffense decrease, and things like employment increase. Our hope is that this pilot program will show the positive impact of stable housing in reentry and the state will begin investing more resources toward that end.

We’ve seen in the last two years what can happen when everyday Alabamians, like us and like you, come together to create positive change. In 2022, we passed HB95, which created a 180 day grace period for people leaving correctional custody before they have to begin paying on accrued fines and fees. In 2023, we passed SB154, which curbed the practice of suspending driver’s licenses for debt-based reasons. And this year with your help and support, we can do it again. See you at the Statehouse!

by Eddie Burkhalter, Researcher


St. Clair Correctional Facility (photo by Bernard Troncale)

Alabama prisons in 2023 saw record high deaths for a second straight year, a grim reminder that the Alabama Department of Corrections is incapable of protecting incarcerated people from drugs, violence and death.

Last year, 325 people died in Alabama prisons, the Alabama Department of Corrections confirmed for Appleseed. This total means more than 1,000 people have died in state prison custody since 2019 when Alabama government officials were put on notice of conditions so dangerous and deadly that the state was violating the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Altogether, there were 1,045 deaths in Alabama prisons from the April 2019 release of the U.S. Department of Justice’s report detailing the horrific violence in the state’s prisons through the end of last year, according to ADOC’s statistical reports and data Appleseed gathered through records requests.

ADOC doesn’t release timely data on prison deaths, and names aren’t released in department reports, leaving it up to journalists and others to gather those names and seek confirmation. The department’s quarterly reports publish data that reflects what was happening in prisons three months prior, so it’s difficult to gauge the current state of violence and death inside Alabama prisons. Appleseed obtained the names and dates of deaths last year through a records request.

The Public Oversight Committee held a public hearing on December 13, 2023 in Montgomery (photo by Alexander Willis for Alabama Daily News).

It can take many weeks and even months for ADOC to close out an investigation into an in-custody death, due in part to the time it takes the state’s lab to complete toxicology reports, but in ADOC’s quarterly reports the department notes that 127 death investigations had been completed for deaths that occurred in 2023. Among those, 47 were determined to be caused by “accidental/overdose,” four were homicides, five were suicides, 72 were “natural” deaths and two were “undetermined’ leaving 198 yet to have an official cause of death.

Families of victims of custodial violence and abuse increasingly are speaking up. Last month, dozens of grieving family members attended the Joint Prison Oversight Committee at the Alabama Statehouse. Other families have emailed lawmakers with chilling photos and videos of the chaotic, degrading, and deadly conditions across the prison system. The 2024 legislative session is less than two weeks away and the desperation of these families promises to push Alabama’s prison crisis into the spotlight yet again.

Hundreds of deaths, little communication with grieving loved ones

ADOC also has a history of misclassifying deaths, as the U.S. Department of Justice noted in a 2019 report. “There are numerous instances where ADOC incident reports classified deaths as due to ‘natural’ causes when, in actuality, the deaths were likely caused by prisoner -on- prisoner violence,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice’s findings in the report.

Christopher Latham (family photo)

For example, the death certificate for Christopher Latham, 40, who died on Oct. 10 following an assault by another incarcerated man at Ventress Correctional Facility on Oct. 4, lists the manner of death as an “Accident” despite also noting that the injury was the result of a “prison fight.” The death certificate, first obtained by ABC 33/40’s Cynthia Gould, lists the immediate cause of death as respiratory failure and the underlying cause as “Intracranial Trauma.” Latham had previously been struck in the head with a weight at Staton Correctional Facility prior to being taken to Ventress prison, where the second assault occurred, according to statements from his family and ADOC.

Appleseed on Thursday contacted the office of the physician who certified Latham’s death at Southeast Health Medical Center in Dothan to question how injuries from a prison fight could result in the death certificate listing the manner of death as “Accidental” instead of a homicide. The physician’s nurse confirmed that Latham had been seen by the doctor, but the physician did not return Appleseed’s message as of Monday morning.

Among the names of those who died last year are 39-year-old Rubyn Murray, who was set to be released in 2025. Former ADOC sergeant D’Marcus Sanders was charged with murder in connection with the July 2023 beating death of Mr. Murray at Elmore Correctional Facility. Mr. Murray had served 19 years of a 20 year sentence for a 2004 robbery. The Alabama Board of Pardons and Parole denied parole for Mr. Murray in February of 2021. His conviction stemmed from a robbery of a Montgomery convenience store in which $125 was stolen; no one was injured, according to court records.

Mr. Murray was involved in an altercation with another officer earlier on July 26, which resulted in minor injuries on both the officer and Mr. Murray, according to an ADOC statement. Murray was then taken to a “back gate holding area” and was to be taken to Staton Correctional Facility for medical assessment and treatment.

“Before the transport could occur and in violation of ADOC policy, two other inmates gained access to the holding area,” the statement reads. “Inmate Murray was found unresponsive and was transported to SHCU and then to an area hospital for emergency treatment. Medical staff was unable to resuscitate inmate Murray and he was pronounced deceased by the attending physician.”

Sgt. Sanders and two incarcerated men, Fredrick Gooden and Stefranio Hampton, were charged with Murder. According to court records, Sgt. Sanders unlocked Mr. Murray’s cell door and allowed those two other incarcerated men to enter and beat Mr. Murray, causing serious injuries that later resulted in his death. An Elmore County District judge has approved an affidavit of hardship filed on behalf of Sgt. Sanders and declared him indigent, meaning Alabama taxpayers will pay the cost to defend him against the murder charge.

Brian Rigsby and his sister Elizabeth (photo courtesy of Pamela Moser)

Brian Rigsby, 46, died on Oct. 4, 2023, at the Staton Correctional Facility infirmary after being beaten by other incarcerated men in August 2023 at Bullock Correctional Facility, causing numerous stab wounds, fractured ribs, a facial fracture and two small skull fractures. Mr. Rigbsy also had end-stage liver failure in the days leading up to his death, his mother, Pamela Moser, told Appleseed.

Mr. Rigsby had been turned down for parole by the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles in July 2023. Ms. Moser was one of the families who pleaded with legislators to address the inhumanity in the prisons at the oversight committee meeting. “When one breaks the law, they lose their freedom, not their rights as a human being. The way my son’s end of life was handled was not humane, kind, or caring. For him and

MaKayla Mount holds an urn containing her father Christopher Mount’s ashes at the Prison Overrsight Committee’s public hearing (photo by Eddie Burkhalter)

his family, I can only hope and pray for change,” she told the six lawmakers in attendance.

Another 2023 victim was Christopher Mount, 44. He was beaten and strangled to death on Mother’s Day 2023 after being placed

in a suicide cell with another man at Easterling Correctional Facility.

Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) investigators believe the other man, William Smith, killed Mr. Mount in that cell. Mr. Smith, 48, was incarcerated after being convicted of choking his girlfriend to death in 2017. Mr. Mount was choked to death as well, according to his death certificate, which lists his cause of death as asphyxiation. “My daughter has nightmares and wakes up screaming and crying because all she sees is her dad being beaten and strangled and screaming for help,” Christy Martin, mother to Mr. Mount’s 17-year-old daughter, MaKayla, told Appleseed. “We were supposed to have him home in our arms and not in an urn.”

Easterling prison was at 188 percent capacity the month that Mr. Mount was killed.

Alabama’s prison mortality rate is five times the national average

The November 2023 death of 22-year-old Daniel Williams following what other incarcerated men say was two to three days of beatings and sexual assaults received international news coverage. Mr. Williams was serving a 12-month sentence and was weeks away from his release when he died.

The suspect in Mr. Williams’ death had a decade-long history of assaulting and raping other incarcerated men in several prisons, Appleseed’s review of court records revealed.

Those documents show nine reports of the suspect in Mr. Williams’ death sexually assaulting or harassing other incarcerated men over the last five years, and those records also show that ADOC didn’t take disciplinary measures against the man that could have increased his classification status and removed him from areas inside prisons in which he could further harm others.

In October 2023, ADOC gave the suspect a perfect scores in the category of “History of Institutional Violence” despite clear records of the previous assaults and rapes. As of Jan. 9 the suspect had not been charged in connection with Mr. Williams’ death, according to court records.

The federal government in December 2020, sued the state and the Department of Corrections alleging that the state “fails to provide adequate protection from prisoner-on-prisoner violence and prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse, fails to provide safe and sanitary conditions, and subjects prisoners to excessive force at the hands of prison staff.” That lawsuit is scheduled for trial in November, 2024.

The death rate in Alabama prisons has climbed to five times the national average. Alabama’s prisoner mortality rate is 1,370 deaths per 100,000 people, compared with a national average of 330 deaths per 100,000, according to the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The Ivey Administration’s response has been to begin construction of a $1.08 billion prison expected to house 4,000 people when it opens in 2026. ADOC officials cite perennially low staff and inability to retain and recruit officers as the cause of much of the violence, but have not released a realistic plan as to how they plan to staff the largest prison ever built in Alabama.

The following is the document provided by the Alabama Department of Corrections listing deaths in 2023:

By Eddie Burkhalter, Appleseed Researcher


Klifton Adam Bond (source Facebook)

Just 22 days after friends of Klifton Adam Bond’s family spoke to the Legislative Joint Prison Oversight Committee about Bond’s injuries following a severe beating, Mr. Bond was found dead in his cell at St. Clair Correctional Facility. 

For lawmakers who listened to those pleas for help, the death of this 38-year-old man should be yet another call to push for meaningful oversight of the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC), which continues to prove itself incapable of protecting the incarcerated from violence and death. 

Mr. Bond was attacked on Nov. 6, 2023 at Donaldson Correctional Facility and remained in a hospital intensive care unit for 12 days, according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of his mother, as reported by Alabama Daily News. Doctors performed brain surgery on Mr. Bond and told the family he’d require extensive rehabilitation, a friend of the family told the prison oversight committee. Instead, Mr. Bond was moved to St. Clair prison on Jan. 3, 2024 and was found unresponsive in his cell the next day, according to ADOC. 

It’s unclear how he died and Appleseed is working to learn more, but in social media posts the family makes clear they believe it was a homicide. The lawsuit alleges that Mr. Bond had been fearful for his life in the days leading up to his death, and that several officers wanted to retaliate against Mr. Bond for his effort to get other incarcerated people medical care. 

Barbara Ann Turner, a friend of Mr. Bond’s family, spoke to lawmakers in December at the Joint Prison Oversight Committee meeting, and pleaded for action. The committee’s annual public hearing is statutorily mandated, and while all six lawmakers on the committee attended, there was no one from the Department of Corrections present. “He was beaten with a pipe, he was stabbed all over his body,” Ms. Turner told the lawmakers, noting that it took intervention from a state senator to get confirmation from the prison’s warden that Bond had been assaulted and was being treated at a hospital. 

“It’s never been worse.”

Just hours after Mr. Bond’s January 4th death, members of the Alabama Joint Contract Review Committee met in Montgomery and heard a request from an ADOC employee to approve a contract for court-ordered oversight of the department. That oversight is connected to a long-running lawsuit over mental health care in prisons, and the reports drafted by the external monitors aren’t currently made public. 

State Representative Chris England

Representative Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, a member of the committee, told Mandy Speirs, assistant general counsel for the Alabama Department of Corrections, of the hundreds of emails he regularly receives from families of incarcerated people describing the violence and death, and pleading for help. “We actually had a meeting here in this room last month of the Prison Oversight Committee, where some of the same people who were sending the emails came to talk to us about some of the horrors they’re experiencing in our prison system,” Rep. England said. “And unfortunately, no one from the Department of Corrections showed up.” 

Rep. England asked if the reports created by those external monitors could be released to the committee, to which Ms. Speirs responded that she would determine whether that was possible. He also questioned whether the committee should create additional oversight of ADOC which could give an “unbiased report.” 

“Not only what’s going on inside the facilities but what the Department of Corrections is doing to address them, but something has got to give because it’s really getting out of control,” Rep. England said. 

“I will say, and I understand, but to make a small defense is that there are two sides to every story and the DOC…for every email that you have, I’m sure we have information for that,” Ms. Speirs said. 

Appleseed reached out to Gov. Kay Ivey’s office with questions about executive branch responses to the crisis, but has received no response. While select lawmakers have been hearing from impacted families and speaking out about the problems, there have been no public statements or explanation for the increasingly deadly prison conditions from the Administration in charge of running prisons. “The Governor’s Office is pretending that nothing is wrong,” Rep. England told Appleseed. “The Executive Branch is in control and responsible for the day to day operations of the prison system and it’s never been worse.” 

It remains unclear what the “other side” is to the frequent cases of individuals being beaten to death while in custody of the state’s largest law enforcement agency, including instances where correctional officers are involved. The story of the beating death of Rubyn Murray, 39, who had served 19 years of a 20-year sentence for robbery, is one of a correctional officer allegedly using his authority to help end the life of a man he was paid to keep alive. D’Marcus Sanders, then an ADOC sergeant at Elmore Correctional Facility, is charged with murder in connection with Mr. Murray’s death in July. According to court records, Mr. Sanders unlocked Mr. Murray’s cell door and allowed two other incarcerated men to enter and beat Mr. Murray, causing serious injuries that later resulted in his death. The Alabama Board of Pardons and Parole denied parole for Mr. Murray in February of 2021. His conviction stemmed from a robbery of a Montgomery convenience store in which $125 was stolen; no one was injured, according to court records.

Alabama taxpayers will pay the cost to defend Mr. Sanders in court after an Elmore County District judge approved an affidavit of hardship filed on behalf of Mr. Sanders and declared the former correctional officer indigent. 

State officials have been provided detailed accounts of unconstitutionally dangerous prison conditions for the last five years, yet the violence only increases. The federal government in December 2020, sued the state and the Department of Corrections alleging that the state “fails to provide adequate protection from prisoner-on-prisoner violence and prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse, fails to provide safe and sanitary conditions, and subjects prisoners to excessive force at the hands of prison staff.” That lawsuit is scheduled for trial in November, 2024. 

“The most brutal meeting I’ve been in”

State Senator Dan Roberts

Senator Dan Roberts, R-Mountain Brook, is chair of the Legislature’s Contract Review Committee and a member of the Joint Prison Oversight Committee. Sen. Roberts spoke to Ms. Speirs during the Contract Review meeting. “That was the most brutal meeting that I’ve been in since I’ve been elected,” Sen. Roberts said of the Dec. 13, 2023, Prison Oversight meeting, where fourteen Alabama families and advocates spoke to lawmakers about Alabama’s broken prison system. 

Among them was 17-year-old MaKayla Mount, whose father, Christopher Mount, was brutally beaten and strangled to death inside a suicide cell at Easterling Correctional Facility after being placed there with another man. “When you see your dad for the first time in 10 years and half of his face is almost gone because he was beaten, it does something to you,” Ms. Mount told committee members. 

MaKayla Mount holds an urn containing her father’s ashes at the Prison Oversight Committee’s public hearing.

Appleseed is awaiting ADOC’s official count of prison deaths during 2023, but the number is expected to set a record for a second straight year. ADOC opened investigations into 247 deaths from Jan. 1 until Sept. 30, the last date for which the department has made that data available in ADOC’s quarterly reports. 

If prison deaths during the last three months of the year remained on pace, Alabama prisons would have seen more deaths last year than ever. Alabama prisons saw a 34 percent increase in deaths between 2021 and 2022, according to the federal data, although the U.S. Department of Justice’s 252 deaths in 2022 is less than what Appleseed and The Montgomery Advertiser confirmed through the Alabama Department of Corrections to be 270 deaths that year, which would put the increase at 43 percent. 

The death rate in Alabama prisons has climbed to five times the national average. Alabama’s prisoner mortality rate is 1,370 deaths per 100,000 people, compared with a national average of 330 deaths per 100,000, according to the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics. 

Speakers ranged from a teenager whose father was brutally killed to a retired lawyer whose father tried to reform Alabama’s prisons 40 years ago.

By Eddie Burkhalter, Appleseed Researcher


The Legislative Joint Prison Oversight Committee held a public hearing on December 13, 2023 in Montgomery (photo by Alexander Willis for Alabama Daily News).

For just over three minutes, 17-year-old MaKayla Mount stood before members of the Legislative Joint Prison Oversight Committee and told the story of her father’s brutal beating and strangulation death inside a protective custody cell at Easterling Correctional Facility on Mother Day 2023. She arrived in Montgomery carrying her father’s remains in an urn.

“When you see your dad for the first time in 10 years and half of his face is almost gone because he was beaten, it does something to you,” Ms. Mount said during Wednesday’s public hearing of the Prison Oversight Committee. She was among fourteen Alabama families  and advocates who spoke to lawmakers about Alabama’s broken prison system, many telling stories of their loved ones dying behind bars, being beaten and family members extorted, and of the indifference of wardens and officers hired to keep their loved ones alive. 

MaKayla Mount holds an urn containing her father’s ashes at the Prison Overrsight Committee’s public hearing. 17-year-old Maykala testified about her father Christopher Mount’s brutal beating and strangulation death inside a protective custody cell at Easterling Correctional Facility on Mother Day 2023 (photo by Eddie Burkhalter).

MaKayla was not permitted to carry the urn to the podium as she, a teenager barely five feet tall, addressed elected officials about the hardest challenge in her young life. “My dad will never get to see me graduate. Never get to see me get married. Never get to see me graduate college. Have kids. That was taken from me,” Ms. Mount said. Correctional officers are supposed to be watching those suicide cells, but none were when her father was attacked and killed, she said. 

William Smith beat and then strangled to death Christopher Mount, who was 44, in that cell, according to ADOC. Mr. Mount’s death certificate lists his cause of death as asphyxiation. Smith, 48, was incarcerated after being convicted of choking his girlfriend to death in 2017.  Smith is believed to have killed himself 20 days after Mr. Mount’s death. Mr. Mount had served almost 17 years of a 30-year sentence after pleading guilty to a string of crimes in 2005 and 2006, all motivated by substance use. 

“My son was raped in February of this year and it took them over a month to get him moved,” one mother told the lawmakers. About three weeks after being moved from Donaldson Correctional Facility to Bullock, some of the men who raped her son at Donaldson arrived at Bullock, she said. “He has spent a lot of time fighting and defending himself, but he’s only going to get written up for defending himself, and then that will have an effect on him when he comes up for parole again,” she said. Appleseed is protecting her identity because of threats to her son’s life and ADOC’s inability to keep him safe. Her son is incarcerated because of an offense that occurred when he was 17 years old.

Her son “has had everything happen to him but be killed” and she had to close her business because of threats she received from other incarcerated men “because they know I make cash money and they know where I live because it’s just that small and people talk.” 

No Alabama Department of Corrections staff appeared to be in attendance at Wednesday’s meeting, one speaker noted, even though it was a statutorily mandated public hearing. 

When it was Pam Moser’s turn to speak, the Birmingham nurse detailed the injuries her son, Brian Rigsby, sustained after an attack at Bullock Correctional Facility. Mr. Rigsby died on Oct. 4, before Ms. Moser’s application for medical furlough for her son, who was also suffering from liver failure, could be processed. He was 46. 

As a child, Brian Rigsby was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Substance abuse plagued his adult life, resulting in a life sentence after pleading guilty in 2007 to robbery in which no one was physically harmed. A string of prior non-violent convictions were linked to his addiction and resulted in the life sentence. 

Ms. Moser and her son’s father, Mitchell Rigsby, visited their son at Bullock in August, as they did each month, she told committee members. “Brian had called a few days earlier and said he’d been hurt. The left side of Brian’s face was swollen and discolored. He had an open stab wound on his left calf which was red and swollen. I counted five lacerations on his head,” Ms. Moser said. “Four days later, long enough for sepsis to set in, Brian was finally hospitalized with a skull fracture, a facial fracture, rib fracture, a stab wound and teeth knocked out.”

Pam Moser and Mitchell Rigsby stand outside the Statehouse. Ms. Moser testified about her son Brian Rigsby’s death in September 2023 while in custody (photo by Elliot Spillers).

The warden told Ms. Moser that no report on Brian’s attack had been filed and told Ms. Moser “I don’t know how we let Brian get by us.” Yet, over and over again at the hearing, families told of severely injured and dying loved ones who were ignored or mistreated by high-level officials in the ADOC, the state’s largest law enforcement agency.

Brian was released but was hospitalized again on Sept. 13, Ms. Moser said, and she got a call from a hospital physician ten days later requesting the family visit with Brian because his condition was deteriorating. The family did visit with Brian in the hospital, but soon after the warden stopped those visits and Rigsby was taken to Staton Correctional Facility, where a warden told her: “Brian is doing better and he was placed on comfort care.” Ms. Moser, who has worked as a hospice nurse, explained to the warden that the change in care meant that her son was dying. 

“Warden Babers said ‘We’re all dying,’” Ms. Moser told the committee. “We were not allowed to see Brian the last seven days of his life. We called daily to tell him we loved him and were trying to get a visit. We don’t know if he got any of those messages, and if he did, was there any response.” 

The federal government in December 2020, sued the state and the Department of Corrections alleging that the state “fails to provide adequate protection from prisoner-on-prisoner violence and prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse, fails to provide safe and sanitary conditions, and subjects prisoners to excessive force at the hands of prison staff.” That lawsuit is scheduled for trial in November, 2024. 

Another speaker, Birmingham lawyer Edward Friend, shared grim historical context. In the 1970s, U.S. District Court Judge Frank Johnson placed the Alabama prison system under federal oversight for 13 years and issued what, at the time, was the most detailed and sweeping remedial order to correct blatant constitutional violations. Judge Johnson appointed an oversight committee to monitor the State’s implementation of his order.

“My father was a member of that 1976 committee. A toughened veteran of World War II who witnessed unspeakable horror and participated in the Normandy landing, he was shocked to the core with the persuasive cruelty and violence (in Alabama prisons),” Mr. Friend told the legislative committee. “Let’s fast forward 48 years. I feel like it’s 1976 again. This son of that military veteran, his friends and neighbors, all are shocked to the core by the local and national newspaper headlines that scream about our prison atrocities, the excessive force by guards as well as inmate on on inmate assaults up 41% in 2023; shocked that we have more inmate murders in the country by a factor of five, shocked that the Department of Justice based on a mountain of evidence declares ADOC is “deliberately  indifferent” to violence that permeates our prisons.”

While the crisis in Alabama’s overpopulated, understaffed prisons continues to grow, the number of people being incarcerated in the state is as well. 

Alabama had the 12th highest rate of increase in the number of people incarcerated in state prisons between 2021 and 2022, with a nearly six percent increase in that time, according to a November report by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. 

Only 10 states had a higher rate of imprisonment than Alabama in 2021, and only eight had higher rates in 2022, according to the federal data. 

Deaths in Alabama prisons are expected to reach a record high for a second straight year in 2023. Alabama prisons saw a 34 percent increase in deaths between 2021 and 2022, according to the federal data, although the U.S. Department of Justice’s 252 deaths in 2022 is less than what Appleseed and The Montgomery Advertiser confirmed through the Alabama Department of Corrections to be 270 deaths that year, which would put the increase at 43 percent. 

Exacerbating the crisis, parole rates have also plummeted in recent years, others spoke to the committee about, as reported by Alabama Daily News. Paroles in Alabama dropped from more than 50 percent in 2018 to less than 8 percent this year. 

By Eddie Burkhalter, Appleseed Researcher


Alabama’s incarceration rate is again on the rise, outpacing most other states, nearly four years after the federal government sued the state over unconstitutional conditions in its dangerous, understaffed prisons.  

Alabama had the 12th highest rate of increase in the number of people incarcerated in state prisons between 2021 and 2022, with a nearly six percent increase in that time, according to a November report by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. 

Only 10 states had a higher rate of imprisonment than Alabama in 2021, and only eight had higher rates in 2022, according to the federal data. 

The report put the percentage of Alabama’s incarcerated classified as violent offenders at 61.3 percent of the 21,413 imprisoned in 2021. That’s markedly lower than what the state classifies as violent offenders. The Alabama Sentencing Commission in its 2023 report stated that 80 percent of the in-house prison population was serving a sentence for a violent offense. The difference between the state and federal estimate comes down to how Alabama more broadly defines what is legally a violent offense, as Alabama Reflector reported in April. 

Alabama prisons saw a 34 percent increase in deaths between 2021 and 2022, according to the federal data, although the U.S. Department of Justice’s 252 deaths in 2022 is less than what Appleseed and The Montgomery Advertiser confirmed through the Alabama Department of Corrections to be 270 deaths that year, which would put the increase at 43 percent. 

Alabama prisons had a 4.2 percent decrease in releases between 2021 and 2022, while overcrowding remained extremely high, at 170 percent design capacity on Dec. 31, 2022, according to the data. 

Racial disparities in incarceration remain extreme. Black Alabamians made up 26.8 percent of the state’s population in 2022, but 52.7 percent of Alabama’s prison population, according to recent data from the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Census Bureau. 

Elected officials have responded to the prison crowding and violence by funding construction of the most expensive new prison in the U.S., the $1.08 billion, 4,000-bed Elmore megaprison. 

The increases in incarceration come at a time when statewide crime data is incomplete, making it difficult to understand and analyze the impact of increased incarceration on public safety.  Because of changes in the reporting system, only partial data is available on crime.alabama.gov, a collaborative effort between the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) and the Institute of Data and Analytics at the University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Business to track and report crime data.

Despite Alabama’s punitive practices and high incarceration rates, the state’s homicide rate persistently outpaces national numbers. In 2021, Alabama had the third highest homicide rate in the nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Alabama’s homicide rate of 15.9 deaths per 100,000 people was nearly double the rate in several other southern states including Virginia, Florida, and Texas.

What’s more, as Appleseed previously reported, in recent years Alabama’s overall crime rates saw a sharp decline that coincided with a decline in incarceration rates. Alabama’s crime rate declined by 17% from 2005 to 2019, the most recent year data is available from ALEA. Robbery, the most common violent crime, sunk by 48%. During much of that period, the state’s incarceration rate fell as a result of increased paroles and implementation of Sentencing Standards, which require non-prison options such as probation and community supervision for many offenses. These statistics, which have accumulated over several years, strongly suggest that less incarceration – especially in prisons with rampant violence, harsh conditions, and little rehabilitation – could improve public safety. 

By Carla Crowder, Executive Director and Scott Fuqua, Staff Attorney


Jerry Boatwright leaving Holman prison on his release date on September 27, 2023 after spending 34 years incarcerated

Jerry Boatwright spent 34 years in an Alabama prison for a burglary conviction. He was supposed to die there. Instead, he’s home just in time to become the primary caregiver for his ailing brother, Randy.

Jerry, 64, has always been a hard worker. At Holman prison, he worked in the sewing plant, earning praise from correctional officers. He did woodworking on the side, creating intricate pieces that he sold to support himself. No matter how hard he worked or how old he became, a life without parole sentence meant he had no hope of ever being released to the brothers he left behind, or as Jerry put it, “I didn’t have a prayer in the world of ever getting out.”

Jerry’s intricate woodworking creations

Scott Fuqua, Appleseed’s staff attorney, began investigating Jerry’s case and learned his most serious offense was a burglary at a Pinson residence in which the only person injured was Jerry. He was shot in the shoulder and had to be airlifted to UAB hospital when the homeowner returned and found Jerry inside his house. At the time of Jerry’s conviction in the 1980s, life without parole was the only available sentence because he had a series of prior convictions for minor offenses. But over three decades, Alabama’s laws have changed, and so has Jerry.

“Requiring Mr. Boatwright to remain in prison until his death for a crime that he would almost certainly not be sentenced to more than 20 years for today would represent a considerable miscarriage of justice,” Appleseed argued in his post-conviction petition. Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr agreed, and did not oppose release. On September 27, Appleseed attorneys traveled to Holman to collect Jerry and bring him home.

Less than two months following his release, Jerry Boatwright has become invaluable to his family, who always wanted him home, but had no idea how much they also needed him. 

“His coming home could not have come at a better time,” said Amber Melvin, Jerry’s niece and Randy Boatwright’s daughter.

Building a ramp and building a life

Immediately after release, Jerry settled in with Randy, 63, in a rural area of Blount County. Their other brother, Dennis Boatwright, was nearby, and connected Jerry with an area pastor in need of a handyman. The pastor put Jerry to work, painting fences and a barn, cutting trees and bushes, even planting flowers. Jerry loved the work, the independence, the pocket money, and the opportunity to help an 80-year-old pastor with long-neglected chores.

Jerry with his niece Amber

Appleseed’s Reentry Case Manager Kathleen Henderson made sure he acquired identification and connected him with doctors to help manage the persistent medical needs that most formerly incarcerated people have. Then, less than a month after Jerry’s release, Randy suffered a health crisis and was rushed to the emergency room. For days he was barely conscious. Family members struggled to try to figure out the best options for his care. They wanted him home, and not in a nursing home. But with most of the family employed full time, who would look after Randy back home?

Jerry would. “If he had not come home, we did not know what we were going to do,” Amber shared. “It’s been such a blessing.”

Jerry’s story is one more example of a truth that we have watched unfold over and over again at Appleseed. People who have been incarcerated, often for decades, deserve a second chance to prove themselves. When given that chance, they become assets to their families and communities. Jerry is the 15th person originally sentenced to life without parole freed by Appleseed’s legal work. Our clients give back in a range of ways, as truck drivers, auto shop workers, re-entry specialists, forklift drivers, barbers. Two clients help out in a faith-based program that mails books to prisoners. They have found purpose in a world that once gave up on them.

For Jerry, it started with the ramp.

The ramp Jerry built for his brother Randy to access their home

His family got to work, building a sturdy ramp and deck so Randy could get easily in and out of the home in a wheelchair or on a walker. They freshened up the place with curtains and a new rug. They agreed home was the best place for him, and they were right. Under Jerry’s care, Randy has improved dramatically. He’s talking, smiling, and eating again. He can walk and shower without assistance. “He is doing so wonderful,” Jerry said earlier this week. Jerry is still very much needed to help fix meals and make sure Randy takes his medications. 

Dennis Boatwright, is moving into a mobile home nearby, bringing the long separated brothers together again to lean on each other and grow old together. “The Lord has blessed me at every turn,” said Jerry, a comment that might seem incongruous coming from a man who spent more than three decades behind bars. Yet Jerry is determined to live a life of hope and gratitude after so many years in the bleak despair of a death-in-prison sentence.

He’s been to a Halloween Festival, a Covered Bridge Festival, and he’s discovered thrift store shopping for many of the necessities required to live life outside of prison.

Appleseed’s holistic approach to freedom

For more than a year before his release, Appleseed’s Scott Fuqua was in frequent contact with Jerry. And case manager Kathleen Henderson has been guiding his re-entry for the last two months.

“One of the things that struck me about Jerry has always been that, despite spending over three decades in prison, he was so grateful and patient as we worked on his case.” Scott said. “When I first met Jerry at Holman Prison in the summer of 2022, he was at a pretty low point and had resigned himself that he might never be released.” 

Despite decades of exemplary behavior and being someone the staff members at the prison placed great trust in, it appeared that Alabama’s draconian laws would require Jerry to remain incarcerated for the rest of his days. Over the course of the next year, Scott got to know Jerry well, talking to him on the phone on a weekly basis, and saw the powerful impact that hope can have on someone trapped in prison, even a prison as dreadful as Holman, where most buildings have been condemned. “The knowledge we were working on his behalf and the hope of eventually having his freedom restored made such a tremendous difference,” Scott said.

Jerry with Staff Attorney Scott Fuqua on release day

Jerry even went out of his way to help his friend and fellow Appleseed client, Larry Garrett, as his case made its way through the legal process. Jerry was instrumental in helping keep Larry’s case moving forward as he helped Scott stay in close contact with Larry and obtain all the documentation we needed for his case. No one was happier for Larry when he was released the week of Christmas, 2022 than Jerry. Two days after picking up Larry at Holman, Scott drove back to Holman to visit Jerry. Facing the prospect of spending his 34th Christmas in prison, it would have been easy for Jerry to be sad about his own situation after his friend of so many years had left. Instead, Jerry was excited to present handmade Christmas cards for the Appleseed staff. He expressed how thrilled he was that his friend was spending Christmas with his family and thankful that he had a reason to hope that he might be spending his last Christmas locked behind bars.

Thankfully Jerry’s hope came to fruition and he will be spending both Thanksgiving and Christmas this year with his family. 

Jerry loves to cook, has a voracious appetite, and is always willing to try new foods. But for all of his exuberance, he was timid about returning to the place where he had made mistakes as a young man.

“When I met Jerry, he was very unsure of the type of reception he would receive and he was very emotional. He worried that he would not be accepted, at least beyond his family,” recalled Appleseed’s Kathleen Henderson. “Jerry is a devout Christian and wanted to attend church. He feared the congregation wouldn’t want a “criminal” (his words not mine) among them. So Jerry took our advice and was open with his pastor and his family. Since then, he has become a very self-assured man. The privilege that I feel, being able to watch Jerry blossom into a more confident and capable individual is unmatched.”

Welcome home, Jerry!

The worsening toll of Stage 4 cancer in an Alabama prison.

This is a follow up to our first story on Ronnie Peoples in Appleseed’s series “Cruel and Unusual” focusing on the people harmed by Alabama’s overreliance on excessive sentences, which trap people in deadly, dysfunctional prisons long after they have paid their debt.

By Eddie Burkhalter, Appleseed Researcher


It’s been six months since Ronnie Peoples was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer, and he worries – from deep inside St. Clair prison – that he still doesn’t know if the treatments are working, or if the cancer has spread more into his ribs and lungs, where doctors found it months ago. 

Getting timely medical information on his condition while serving time in an Alabama prison is difficult, Peoples explained to Appleseed. One recent slip-up by a well-intentioned but overworked nurse in St. Clair resulted in a missed opportunity to get critical lab work needed, putting him another week behind in learning whether the cancer is receding or spreading, he said. 

“You’ve got to have someone on the outside,” Peoples said, referring to a friend from out of state who called the Alabama Department of Corrections, which resulted in medical staff ordering that lab work be done at Brookwood Baptist Medical Center. 

Ronnie Peoples

He received a second injection of a chemotherapy drug on October 10th, which treats his disease for three months, but the disease is taking a toll on him, both physically and mentally. “It’s been touch and go,” Mr. Peoples said when asked how he’s holding up. Pain is worsening, and he’s now suffering from shortness of breath. “I’m a fast walker. Now, I have to slow down. It’s hardest on stairs.” 

Mr. Peoples is 68 and has served 32 years of a life without the possibility of parole sentence under the state’s Habitual Felony Offender Act (HFOA). He is among the growing number of very sick and older incarcerated people in Alabama with lengthy sentences and no clear pathway for release. 

Mr. Peoples received his life without the possibility of parole sentence after a 1991 robbery at a beverage company conviction in Tuscaloosa County. No one was injured. His sentence was enhanced under the HFOA because of prior robbery convictions more than four decades ago in the 1970s, including in Ohio. Life without parole was the only available sentence at the time, but because of changes to Alabama sentencing laws, Mr. Peoples would have been eligible for a much shorter sentence if current laws applied to his case. 

The day after Mr. Peoples had his lab work done he planned to return to the job he’s had for more than two decades, keeping track of the tools used in the welding classes in St. Clair prison’s trade school. He’s known Bradley Black, the welding instructor at St. Clair prison, since Mr. Black began working there in the early 2000s. “His church prays for me every night,” Mr. Peoples said. 

In 2015, Mr. Black wrote a letter to a judge on Mr. People’s behalf. Mr. Peoples sought resentencing, but was unsuccessful despite support from people who knew he had been rehabilitated.. 

While speaking to Appleseed, Mr. Peoples said he was in pain, but that he couldn’t get his twice-daily pain medication dosage increased because the company that oversees healthcare in Alabama prisons, YesCare, has to approve all medication changes and medical procedures. The doctor at St. Clair prison told Mr. Peoples that he could ask for a dosage increase, but said “they’re going to deny you, and cuss me out,” Mr. Peoples said the doctor told him recently. 

The Tennessee-based private equity-owned company YesCare was formerly known as Corizon Health, but in 2021 the company was split into two separate entities, according to a report published in October 2023 by the nonprofit Private Equity Stakeholder Project.  YesCare retained much of the same staff as Corizon Health and the company’s prison contracts, while Tehum was saddled with the company’s debt. In February 2023, Tehum filed for bankruptcy. Thousands of lawsuits against Corizon Health in previous years alleged medical neglect and the deaths of incarcerated people, and the mounting debt from those lawsuits across the U.S. preceded the split, which allowed the company to continue operating as YesCare while leaving the debt with Tehum, the report details. 

“Tehum, the bankrupt new company created in the maneuver, owes more than $82 million to over 1,000 creditors, including former patients who were injured or neglected, former employees who were hurt on the job, hospitals, doctors’ offices, cities and states,” The Marshall Project reported. 

YesCare, meanwhile, got an enormous boost from the State of Alabama. The Alabama Department of Corrections in February 2023 approved a contract worth more than $1 billion with YesCare to provide healthcare in the state’s prisons.

The Private Equity Stakeholder Project report also details the company’s troubling past, and difficulty holding on to valuable contracts. “In the three years up to 2015, it lost contracts in Minnesota, Maine, Maryland, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania.” In late 2015, the company announced it would end its Florida contract early because the agreement was “too constraining,” the report states. “Patient deaths in the state had spiked to a 10-year high shortly after Corizon took over its prison healthcare services.” 

The report notes that in subsequent years Corizon lost contracts with New York City and a $188.6 million contract with the state of Arizona “after allegations of serious medical neglect.” The contract’s “per inmate day” rate “created an almost irresistible incentive to deny care,” according to the director of the ACLU National Prison Project.

“In 2021, Corizon lost its contract with the Idaho Department of Correction, and also lost a $1.4 billion bid to provide healthcare services in Missouri, where it had provided prison healthcare since 1992,” the report reads. 

As he awaits word as to whether his cancer has spread, Mr Peoples is also dealing with a loss of appetite caused by his treatments. “Sometimes when I smell the food I can’t eat it. It makes me nauseous,” Mr. People said. 

The pain is constantly increasing, his appetite is waning and he often loses his breath, but Mr. Peoples said he’s still hopeful that he’ll be cured and some day be freed from prison. 

He wants to be free again, to spend time with his sons and grandchildren and to work on the outside. 

“First thing I’d need is my drivers license back,” Mr. Peoples said. “Got to have that if I want to work.” 

But for now, Mr. Peoples waits for word on his cancer, and will go back to his work station at the prison’s trade school where Mr. Black has trusted him for more than two decades to take care of the tools that he carefully tracks. 

This story is part of Appleseed’s “Cruel and Unusual” series, focusing on the people harmed by Alabama’s overreliance on excessive sentences, which trap people in deadly, dysfunctional prisons long after they have paid their debt.

By Carla Crowder, Executive Director


Leon “Bud” Hotchkiss at Sportsman’s Marine, a Fairhope boat dealership where he works days before returning to the Loxley Work Release Center

Every night after Leon Hotchkiss finishes up at the south Alabama boat dealership where he washes and moves boats, serves as a general maintenance worker, and is so trusted that he has his own key, he stands outside to wait for a ride. At the end of that ride, Mr. Hotchkiss is locked up with a key belonging to the state of Alabama, which has held him prisoner for 11 years and plans to hold him 29 more – all because of marijuana.  

Mr. Hotchkiss, who just turned 68, is serving a 40 year sentence for growing marijuana on his own property. Acting on a tip from his ex-wife, the Baldwin County Drug Task Force went to Mr. Hotchkiss’s home and found marijuana plants. They arrested him on a charge of trafficking, which is a Class A felony in Alabama, the most serious category of crime.

During his more than a decade of incarceration, Mr. Hotchkiss has assisted in educational programs, led Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and maintained a stellar institutional record with zero disciplinary infractions. None of that mattered when he went up for parole in February; the Parole Board denied his request and set his next hearing off for five years, the maximum set off amount permitted by law. 

It is unclear what public safety benefit is being served by Mr. Hotchkiss’s continued incarceration; he has been assigned to the minimum-security Loxley Work Release Center for years. His first job was sorting garbage at the transfer station in Bay Minette, commonly called “the dump.” Currently, he works at Sportsman’s Marine, a Fairhope boat dealership, where he washes and moves boats and assists with general maintenance. Though he has his own key to the dealership, he must return each night to the crowded doublewide trailer he shares with more than 45 other men at the prison camp.

“I cringe every night he goes back to Loxley,” said Jody Cullifer, who worked as general manager at Sportsman’s Marine until a few months ago. He described Mr. Hotchkiss as “the most dependable employee I’ve had in the three years I worked there.” 

It was Mr. Hotchkiss’s co-workers at the boat dealership who contacted Alabama Appleseed about his case and requested assistance in advocating for his release.Our entire staff is willing to do whatever it takes to help him with his case as we see this as a severe injustice and more than harsh punishment for his crime,” the initial email read. 

“Marijuana was a lot better pain reliever than anything I took.”

Appleseed began researching the case, interviewed Mr. Hotchkiss, and reviewed the court records, which confirmed that  Court records show that he signed a consent to search form, permitting Baldwin County Drug Task Force officers to search his home without a warrant.  A Department of Forensic Sciences Certificate of Analysis shows that officers found approximately 2600 grams, which is 5.7 pounds of marijuana growing on the property. This total is on the low end of weight considered sufficient for a trafficking charge.

The Alabama Code permits a charge of trafficking in cannabis for possession of 2.2 to 100 pounds, whether or not there is evidence of distribution. Mr. Hotchkiss readily admits that he relied on cannabis to treat his aches and pains from a lifetime of hard labor. He served in the Marines, worked as a commercial fisherman, and worked in construction, helping to build luxury hotels that bring tourists to the Gulf Coast beaches.  “I had a pine tree cut down on me one time that really messed up my head and my neck,” he said. Soon after moving to Alabama, he got a construction job building the Orange Beach Hilton. “They dropped a pallet of exterior sheetrock on top of me and it broke my collar bone, fractured my shoulder, my neck, and gave me this hernia I have in my chest in the top of my rib cage.”

He was prescribed opioid pain pills, he said, but chose not to take them long term as he did not want all the despair, and worse, that comes from opioid addiction. Besides, “marijuana was a lot better pain reliever than anything I took,” he said.

This was not Mr. Hotchkiss’s first marijuana arrest. In 1990, he served six months in prison for a conviction of conspiracy to distribute marijuana. No one is claiming he has lived a marijuana-free life, least of all Leon Hotchkiss, whose middle name is Bud. 

However, even considering this prior conviction, the Baldwin County District Attorney’s Office initially offered a plea agreement, recommending a sentence of 15 years in the trafficking case and offering to dismiss a related charge of possession of drug paraphernalia. The plea agreement, dated June 29, 2012, was provided by the office of then-District Attorney Hallie S. Dixon to Mr. Hotchkiss’s appointed attorney. A 15 year sentence would have made him eligible for Correctional Incentive Time (good time) and release after 4.5 years (in 2017).

The record is not entirely clear as to why the case was not resolved pursuant to that plea offer. Shortly after the offer expired, Mr. Hotchkiss retained a new attorney and entered a blind plea to the trafficking and paraphernalia charges. At the sentencing hearing, his attorney told the Court: “Mr. Hotchkiss accepted responsibility as soon as consent was obtained by the police department. He was cooperative, told them everything, took them through the house, showed them all the marijuana. And, in addition, he told law enforcement that he was not making a living but that he had an injury and he was unable to work and earn money and that’s why he was growing the marijuana.”

A Baldwin County Circuit Judge sentenced him to 40 years in prison. 

Parole-eligible again at age 72

In addition to his coworkers, numerous friends are disturbed about Mr. Hotchkiss’s continued incarceration as he heads into his eighth decade. They signed a support letter requesting that the Baldwin County District Attorney’s Office reconsider the 40 year sentence in light of Mr. Hotchkiss’s excellent institutional record, obvious lack of danger to the community, and parole denial. District Attorneys have extraordinary power and can use it to assist in reducing sentences even years after a conviction is final.

Hallie Dixon, the District Attorney in office at the time of his conviction, frequently made headlines during her tenure for questionable activities in the DA’s office. She settled an EEOC Complaint, arising out of allegations of sexual harassment filed against her. Several DA’s office employees fell sick after someone brought marijuana-laced brownies to the office. Longtime Baldwin County Judge Robert Wilters ran against her in 2015 until she dropped out of the race.

Here’s what Mr. Wilters said about her office at the time:

“There just appears to be, I won’t say total chaos. . .  There is definitely a lack of leadership in the district attorney’s office and with that lack of leadership it trickles down to the assistants and investigators and everybody in the office and it’s time for a change in leadership there.”

Here’s where Mr. Hotchkiss’s case gets additionally complicated. Mr. Wilters was also the judge who sentenced him to 40 years back in 2012. Now Mr. Wilters is the current Baldwin County District Attorney.

So when attorneys at Appleseed contacted him about the community concern over Mr. Hotchkiss’s lengthy sentence, Mr. Wilters assigned an Assistant District Attorney to look into the request for a sentence review to avoid any potential conflict of interest. That prosecutor relayed that the office would not get involved and that he felt the parole board was the proper venue for relief.

Given this year’s parole denial and subsequent five year parole set off, which is an indicator that the Parole Board does not intend to grant parole any time soon, Mr. Hotchkiss could be incarcerated for the rest of his life.

Records from the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles show that the reasons parole was denied were: the severity of the offense and negative input from stakeholders (victim, family of victim, law enforcement or elected officials). The parole report also stated there was no victim in this offense.

Mr. Hotchkiss won’t be eligible for parole again until February, 2026. He will be 72 years old and will have served 15 years in prison for growing a substance that is legal in states where half of Americans live.

“Packed like sardines” and living with a permanent catheter

Alabama prisons are notoriously overcrowded and violent, and state officials are fighting system wide litigation over unconstitutional conditions. In response, Alabama is spending $1.082 billion on a massive new prison, and has signed a healthcare contract that will cost $1.06 billion tax dollars over the next four years, an amount so high, in part, because of soaring numbers of older people, like Leon Hotchkiss, in prison. 

Cannabis has been approved for medical purposes, even in Alabama, and is fully legal in numerous states. And yet, short of an extraordinary intervention or major change in parole board practices, Mr. Hotchkiss may never get out of prison. Except, of course, to work in the community at his assigned work release job, that requires 40% of his salary, plus transportation costs, to be returned to the Alabama Department of Corrections.

Adding to his struggles, Mr. Hotchkiss suffers from a medical condition that requires he permanently rely on a catheter. While assigned to Kilby Correctional Facility soon after his conviction, he suffered from a bladder stone that went untreated for weeks, despite his multiple sick call requests to the Kilby infirmary. Eventually, he was transferred to an outside hospital, where he spent four months and lost 100 pounds before returning to Kilby with chronic, painful urinary tract issues.

Since he’s been assigned to the Loxley Work Release, it’s easier to avoid infections while changing his catheter. But this summer, only one bathroom was available in the doublewide trailer he shares with 45 men at Loxley. So that was challenging.

Alabama’s prisons are notoriously overcrowded and work release centers are no exception. Loxley houses 192 people in a space designed for 110. “There’s a top and bottom rack and we’re packed like sardines,” Mr. Hotchkiss said.

Bud Hotchkiss uses his spare time to make intricate paper boats out of catheter box packaging and Coca Cola boxes.

“Sometimes common sense demands a second look.”

Mr. Hotchkiss makes the best of it. He uses his spare time to make intricate paper boats out of catheter box packaging and Coca Cola boxes. He mailed his biggest one yet to his now 27-year-old son, who was only 16 when Mr. Hotchkiss was arrested.

Mr. Hotchkiss is grateful for the chance to leave the work release center most days, even though his work days are long and his paycheck is small, given the ADOC policy of keeping nearly half.

“I like boats, I’m very mechanically inclined. I’ve been around boats a lot in my life. I run the forklift,” he explained “I like running the forklift and keeping the yard straight. We do a lot of repowers, putting new engines on boats.”

Several of his coworkers, and even the owner of the boat dealership, recently signed a letter in support of Mr. Hotchkiss’s release and requested that the Baldwin County District Attorney’s office assist in obtaining a reduced sentence.

“We understand and respect your commitment to law and order in Baldwin County, and your dedication to the rights of victims. But sometimes common sense demands a second look. Leon Hotchkiss has paid dearly for the crime of growing marijuana, yet no victims were ever identified in this case.  We would welcome an opportunity to meet with you, share more about our friend and co-worker, and discuss the possibility for better options for Mr. Hotchkiss as he nears his 70s,” the letter read.

That was in June, and the DA’s Office has since declined to assist.

His friends and coworkers are disappointed.

“He is an honest, hard working family man. When he wasn’t working, he loved to work in his yard and nurture his son Jason, who he was a single parent of. Jason was the light of his world. They had a most happy family. This included Jason’s pet turkey, chickens and his dog, Ellie. He was a wonderful friend who would cook holiday dinners for those of us who had no family close. He would show up quickly for anyone who needed help.” said his longtime friend Teresa Harpole, who spoke at the parole hearing where parole was denied and set off until 2028. “No one I have spoken to that is aware of his case in the community and beyond can understand his unusually harsh, seemingly excessive, sentence for this offense. He has suffered much for his crime. The day he was denied parole his Mother died. …He still could be a productive member of society. He has so many skills and gifts to offer. He needs to be able to spend the last time of his life with his family and friends, his loved ones.” 

Mr. Hotchkiss holds out hope that somehow an opportunity for a few years of freedom will arrive so he can spend time with his children and grandchildren. He, accidentally, had a small taste of freedom when he first began his work release job.

“First time I was here, they were late picking me up. I was standing out front and they were 2 hours late picking me up. And I said to myself, ‘Bud, this is the first time in like 7 years you’re actually free.’ I could have just walked right away. It was a strange feeling. It ran across my mind, I could just walk away.”

But he didn’t. Instead he followed the rules. “I was hoping for the best, that things might work out and this might be over with.”