Latest Headlines
- Special Election To Replace Matt Gaetz In Congress Set For April Fools’ Day
- Escambia Schools Announce Top 10 Teachers Of The Year
- Cantonment Man Charged With Sexual Battery, Molestation Of 5-Year-Old
- Truck Driver Airlifted After Crash On Quintette Road
- Two Newly Elected Escambia School Members Installed
- Bratt Elementary Releases Honor Roll, Perfect Attendance
- Century Correctional Inmate Charged With Drug Trafficking Inside The Prison
- Bogia And Mystic Springs Railroad Crossing Closures Planned For The Weekend; Becks Lake Next
- Northview Chiefs Fall To Pensacola Christian Warriors (With Gallery)
- Matt Gaetz Withdraws From Attorney General Consideration
Alabama Death Row Inmate Executed At Atmore Prison For 1998 Shooting Of Father Of Seven
July 19, 2024
The execution of Alabama death row inmate Keith Edmund Gavin was carried out by lethal injection on Thursday at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.
He was pronounced deceased by a physician at 6:32 p.m.
On Wednesday, Gavin had three visitors and no phone calls. On Thursday he had four visitors, no phone calls, refused his breakfast meal, accepted his lunch meal, had a few snacks and refused his final meal. He id not make any special requests.
Gavin was sentenced to death for the 1998 capital murder of William Clinton Clayton, Jr. , in Cherokee County. Clayton was the father of seven and had stopped at an ATM to withdraw money for a date night with his wife.
“After a Cherokee County courier, William Clayton, Jr., finished his day’s work, he stopped at an ATM so he could treat his wife to dinner, only to be robbed of his life by Keith Gavin,” Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement. “After receiving a death sentence, Mr. Gavin appealed time after time for years to avoid justice, but failed at every attempt. Today, that justice was finally delivered for Mr. Clayton’s loved ones.
“I offer my prayers for Mr. Clayton’s family and friends who still mourn his loss all these years later,” Ivey said.
Comments
19 Responses to “Alabama Death Row Inmate Executed At Atmore Prison For 1998 Shooting Of Father Of Seven”
There is no need to engage in hyperbole or put words in each other’s mouths. You and I have a different perception in probabilities. I am very concerned about the value of life, specifically the life of a father of seven withdrawing money from an ATM to take his wife out for dinner or some other person who is merely going about their life. I care far less about the life of a probable thug who thinks nothing of murdering this person for $20. I believe it is more probable that a person with a life in prison sentence will be released from some judge’s misguided sense of leniency (not due to a mistrial, as you had accused me of earlier) and go on to create more victims. You APPEAR to think it more probable that said thug was not the triggerman and should thereby be exonerated. I am more concerned about victim’s, their families, and future potential victims while you seem more concerned that individuals are wrongly accused, convicted, and subsequently punished. I suspect you’d allude to systemic racism, prosecutorial socio-economic bias or something of that like as the cause. At the end of the day, I believe the risk to society posed by recidivism outweighs the risk of wrongful prosecution. I believe that as laws cease to be effectively enforced, crime will surge.
@Greg
Again, the reason we have a lengthy appeals process is to reduce the number of innocent people we execute. If we shorten/expedite that appeals process, then more innocent people will be executed. This isn’t complicated.
As for the rest of your comment, Christ. You’re talking about casually killing hundreds of innocent people and stringing up their corpses in public in the *hopes* that it might deter crime. That isn’t justice. It’s obscene.
I know this gets thrown around as an insult a lot, so please don’t take it that way: seek therapy. It is genuinely not healthy to have that much callous disregard for human life.
But you’re right. We are diametrically opposed. Until you learn that life has value and that torturing and murdering innocent people is wrong, we’re never going to find any common ground.
I did not say eliminate the appeals process but to curtail it to one appeal. Throwing out hyperbolic statements of the millions of wrongly accused who would suffer after having undergone TWO full judicial reviews doesn’t reflect reality. These people and their attorneys abuse the system. Also, some professor spitting out a definition, an editor allowing that language to be published in a text book or even a statute being passed doesn’t necessarily lead to sound jurisprudence. I fully disagree that society has any role in rehabilitative efforts. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze in the vast majority of cases. You and I are coming at this issue from what appear to be radically different philosophical positions and will never persuade the other of the “rightness” of our positions. I do not dispute that Capital Punishment, as applied over the last 75 years or so, provides little or no deterrent. I believe much of this has to do with the appellate process we disagreed about earlier. For the purpose of argument, were Capital Punishment to be regularly and efficiently applied, I do believe behaviors would change. To use an extreme example, were we to ring our cites with crucified murderers, drug dealers, child molesters, et cetera, I believe our society would observe a radical reduction in violent crime. Yes, there would be the risk of the occasional innocent, but on the flip side, how many other innocent victims would be protected through the prevention of violent crimes? Neither of us will persuade the other we’re right.
@Greg
The reason the appeal process is so lengthy and expensive is because there is always a real risk of executing an innocent person. Our country has already done that a disturbingly large number of times. Getting rid of appeals increases that risk. How many innocent people are you comfortable with killing? And for what benefit?
There’s no evidence that capital punishment has any impact on the crime rate. And killing people because “we have to make the decision permanent so that no one can change their minds in the event of a mistrial” is ghoulish as hell.
That’s not *my* definition of “justice”. It’s the definition that was taught when I took Criminal Justice. If you believe that justice doesn’t have an obligation to be preventative, rehabilitative, and protective, then what do YOU believe “justice” means?
Everyone loves to cite these outrageous costs to execute perpetrators versus life in prison. That is merely a function of an outrageous appellate process that could be reformed. The cost to execute would plummet if each case was limited to a single appellate review. There is a Constitutional Right to swift justice. We owe that to these prisoners. Additionally, the deterrent factor would likely increase as more perpetrators met their Maker. If Death Row were a two, six month stint at most, thugs would likely think twice. If not, fine. They would be quickly removed from society. Another point is that so many life sentences are cut short with perps let go to commit yet more crimes (recidivism) is a strong argument to not rely on for society’s benefit. Finally, one writer chose his definition for justice. I challenge that definition. Society has zero burden to rehabilitate anyone. Commit the crime, suffer the consequences. The victim’s family suffered, so, too, should the perpetrator.
The average cost of execution is 30 million dollars. However, the average cost to maintain a prisoner per year is between 30,000 to 40,000 in Alabama. I think, cost aside, this man murdered a father of 7. That’s seven children that had to grow up without their dad. Fatherless homes is a huge root cause to crimes. So, there’s layers to this. He killed him in cold blood. No grey area. Maybe his execution was paramount to the rehabilitation of that family of the slain? Justice goes both ways.
Anne, CJ, Too Long, open invite to you too. If any of you want to explain to me why you support the government killing people, I’d love to hear it.
@Susie
Since Phillip is apparently unable to answer my question, maybe you’d like to take a crack at it?
@Phillip
Justice has three requirements: it has to be preventative, rehabilitative, and protective. The death penalty isn’t any of those. The only people that call capital punishment “justice” are people who have no idea what that word means.
Again, even IF we ignore the fact that killing someone for money is dark, death row is significantly more expensive than life in prison. It cost taxpayers a lot more to put this guy in the ground than to just keep him locked up until nature did its thing.
So, no. You still haven’t answered the question: What advantage do we get as a community by killing people instead of incarcerating them?
Great answer, @Phillip.
@Bob the answer is simple, justice. If you murder a father of 7, or anybody..you should not be able to walk the earth, any longer. Life in prison isn’t reformatory. Life in prison is a misuse of taxpayers funds. Why did he get to decide someone should die, and then we support him for the rest of his life? Your question has been answered multiple times but you refuse to accept it.
Too bad he got so many meals funded by taxpayer dollars after committing murder. He had no mercy on the man he killed, society owed him no mercy either and yet in took all these years for justice to happen. Criminal justice system is garbage
He got 26 more years to live than Mr. William Clinton Clayton, Jr. The process from sentencing until the sentence is carried out should be shortened. He did not wait to kill Mr. Clayton, Jr. I understand due diligence. I understand he was living in prison which cost the taxpayer money. Plus he caused the Clayton family undue suffering each time he chose to appeal.
This 26 years of housing & feeding these murderers has got to stop! ^ months to live maximum when you murder anyone. That would stop these senseless murders.
I’m gonna ask the same question I ask EVERY time the death penalty comes up that everyone always refuses to answer: Why? Why use the death penalty instead of life in prison?
How about you @Bill T? You’re always chomping at the bit to advocate for killing people. Want to explain why?
CONCERNING:
“they did not execute the same person that committed the crime.”
Was he still a person who would kill innocent people?
After 26 yrs they did not execute the same person that committed the crime.
Murdering scum got his justice. I’m happy for the family of the victim that this wild as#%*+ sub human is in the fires of hell.
Next !!!!! And good riddance you got what was needed!!!