A Black man once sentenced to death for murder fights for freedom after discovering his attorney defended the Ku Klux Klan

A phone line rings. It clicks, and an automated message is recited in a woman’s strict, dull monotone.

“You are receiving a call from the St. Clair Correctional Facility. To accept this call, press 5. This call will be recorded and subject to monitoring at any time.”

The line clicks again and a new voice floods into the receiver.

Robin “Rocky” Myers, dressed in a khaki jumpsuit, is calling from the recreation yard of an Alabama prison about 30 miles northeast of Birmingham. For a few minutes, the prison seems to recede behind his voice.

He has spent the afternoon outside and wishes he never had to go back in.

“I’ve been locked up in one cell for 31 years. I don’t want to be inside no more. When I get out, I don’t want a house. I don’t want an apartment. I want a car where I can drive everywhere,” he said, with the certainty of someone who has spent too long dreaming about something most people take for granted.

“I want to be free.”

Myers, a Black man, was sentenced to death in 1994 for the murder of his White neighbor, Ludie Mae Tucker, a crime he maintains he did not commit. There was no DNA evidence tying him to the crime scene, where Tucker had been stabbed in the heart, according to court documents.

His conviction rested on circumstantial evidence and testimony from witnesses Myers’ lawyers said were unreliable, including one witness who later recanted his testimony. A nearly all-White jury recommended life without parole, but the judge overrode them and imposed a death sentence.

The attorneys now representing Myers are hoping new information about the lawyer originally appointed to defend him may finally bring the freedom he has spent decades fighting for.

“He had a lawyer that didn’t care about him,” LeAndrew Hood, Myers’ son, told CNN.

But on August 24, that hope dimmed when the Morgan County District Attorney filed a brief on behalf of the state opposing Myers’ petition to overturn his conviction. On August 28, Morgan County Circuit Court Judge Charles Elliott agreed with the district attorney and rejected the petition. The setback has left Myers’ dream of reuniting with his family on hold, at least for now.

Myers’ legal team filed an appeal to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals on October 8, his attorneys told CNN. It is not clear when the court will rule on Myers’ appeal.

“I know I might live in prison until I die here,” Myers wrote in a letter after learning his petition was denied again. “But I hope and pray for something more.”

For years, Myers, a father of four, sat on death row. Then, in 2025, with his execution approaching, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey granted him clemency, commuting his death sentence to life without parole. Ivey, a Republican who is a staunch supporter of the death penalty, said because there was enough uncertainty surrounding Myers’ guilt , she could not allow the execution to go forward.

But clemency did not answer a larger question: Is Alabama prepared to let a man die in prison for a crime he maintains he did not commit?

From Louisville Courier-Journal

When Myers was arrested and tried, America was only a generation removed from the formal end of Jim Crow. The ghosts of segregation still walked the streets. And the Ku Klux Klan, though diminished from its earlier power, had not disappeared. It was still rallying, preaching racial hatred.

Among the men who publicly defended the klan, representing them in court cases in the 1970s and ’80s, was an attorney named John Edmond Mays.

In 1987, the United Klans of America was ordered to pay $7 million for the gruesome 1981 murder of Michael Donald, a Black teenager whose body was found hanging from a tree in Mobile, Alabama. Donald had been kidnapped, beaten and killed by klansmen in retaliation for the killing of a police officer – a crime Donald had no involvement in – and to intimidate Black jurors from ruling in favor of Black defendants.

Mays defended the Klan in the case, according to Richard Cohen, the president of the Southern Poverty Law Center and one of the lawyers who represented Donald’s family.

In court, Mays called Donald’s murder a “gross and horrible atrocity” but argued the organization itself should not be held responsible, according to a 1987 article in The Buffalo News. Robert Shelton, who was the United Klans of America’s imperial wizard, the highest-ranking leader, told the jury, “White supremacy is a political goal, nothing more.”

Then, in 1992, Mays became Myers’ lawyer.

Mays declined to speak to CNN but a friend and fellow lawyer, Richard Jaffe, passed along a statement from him.

“I took Rocky’s case because I hate the death penalty and I felt I could provide him with effective representation,” Mays told CNN, through Jaffe. He was appointed by the Circuit Court of Morgan County to represent Myers.

Jaffe, who said he has Mays’ permission to speak with CNN, believes Mays’ previous representation of the klan does not diminish the “effective and passionate” advocacy he provided for Myers or other Black clients he has represented throughout his career, which continues today.

“It was not a popular thing for him to do in that small town. Think ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’” Jaffe told CNN, referring to Harper Lee’s novel about a Black man falsely accused of raping a White woman in the Jim Crow South and who was defended by a White man. “Rocky deserves a new trial, but not because of John,” he later added.

For decades, activists and Myers’ legal team have dug through the wreckage of his case. What they found was not one isolated mistake but a trail of failures, including his representation, according to Kacey Keeton, one of Myers’ attorneys in his federal habeas proceedings.

“A Black person on trial for their life would not make that choice for that to be their lawyer,” Keeton, who represented Myers from 2007 to 2025, when he was granted clemency, said. “When you are poor and Black in Alabama, you get what the state gives you. And that’s what they gave Rocky Myers.”

Jaffe told CNN Mays denies being a klansman. Jaffe said Mays was just a lawyer representing the klan.

While Mays defended the klan in court on multiple occasions, Myers’ lawyers argue his involvement went beyond his role as an attorney, citing archived newspaper reports and photographs they say portray Mays as an outspoken public defender of the klan.

“You hear a lot about civil rights of the (N-word) and the civil rights of murderers and of every kind of pervert known to humanity,” Mays is quoted as saying during a 1977 Klan rally in Virginia, according to the Suffolk-News Herald. “But what about the civil rights of the decent, law-abiding White man, or the law-abiding Black man, for the matter?”

Asked about the newspaper report, Jaffe said Mays helped klan leader Shelton get a permit for the rally and regrets attending it.

Mays also expressed regret for using the N-word, attributing it to growing up in “a racist environment” in the segregated South, Jaffe said.

“If John represented someone from the klan, it doesn’t make him racist,” Jaffe told CNN.

Myers’ lawyers see something more troubling, arguing Mays’ history followed him into Myers’ trial and compromised the defense of a Black man whose life depended on him.

In August 2025, after Myers was granted clemency, his attorneys jumped at what they perceived to be an opening. They filed a petition asking a judge to vacate his conviction, arguing Myers is innocent, and the failures surrounding his original defense make his conviction fundamentally unreliable.

The Morgan County District Attorney’s Office, representing the State of Alabama, opposed the petition in March 2026. Myers’ lawyers filed a reply in May.

William Widmer/Redux

The District Attorney filed its answer on August 24, once again opposing Myers’ petition and adopting its prior arguments in its motion to dismiss.

The state argued that Myers is trying to revive his untimely claim of ineffective assistance of counsel by repackaging it as a conflict-of-interest argument, but has failed to meet the heavy burden of showing that the prior Klan case actually conflicts with his own.

A Morgan County Circuit Court judge agreed with the state, and decided to dismiss the petition without a hearing.

If the hearing had occurred, Myers’ attorneys would have been able to present evidence that Mays “was conflicted to the point of not providing representation and evidence of innocence and lying witnesses,” Keeton told CNN. “During such a hearing, the district attorney decides how much to fight versus agree with what Rocky presents.”

The judge would have then decided whether Myers met his burden of showing his conviction should be overturned.

In his order denying Myers’ petition, Elliott did not weigh in on allegations Mays worked for the Ku Klux Klan or its possible effect on his defense of Myers. The judge noted the allegation in a single sentence, then dismissed the petition on procedural grounds without examining it.

The denial of his petition is “confusing,” Myers wrote in a letter with the help of Leah Nelson, a researcher and consultant who has worked on Myers’ case for more than a decade and lives in Montgomery.

“I can let anger go, but grief is not the same. So many people have died while I’ve been locked up. My mother. My brother that raised us … I lost my daughter a few months ago,” Myers wrote in the letter. He describes attending his daughter’s funeral over a video conference call.

“I have grandkids that I never met. It’s hard not to know your own flesh and blood. When I dream about what it would be like if I were free, I dream of being with my family.”

Myers’ legal team does not intend to give up, and has filed another appeal, this time to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals.

Both sides will file written arguments on the issues Myers raised in his notice of appeal, Keeton said. The court might allow oral argument, but it is not required, then issue an order granting or denying the appeal.

There is no clear timeline for when a new decision, or the next word in Myers’ quest for freedom, will come.

This is the question now hanging over Myers’ case: In a conviction built on disputed testimony and a defense led by someone who spent a decade representing an organization that viewed people like you as less than human, was your trial fair?

The evidence at the heart of Myers’ conviction, his lawyers say, is just as troubling as the representation surrounding his case and raises questions of its own.

Before succumbing to her injuries on October 4, 1991, the victim described her attacker as a stocky, short Black man — a description Myers’ attorneys argue points to his innocence; he was her neighbor and frequently visited her to buy ice. If Myers had been her attacker, they contend, she could have identified him by name or simply said it was her neighbor.

Investigators initially suspected Anthony “Cool Breeze” Ballentine after a VCR was stolen from victim Ludie Mae Tucker’s home. Three witnesses said they saw Ballentine with the VCR at a neighborhood drug house, where he allegedly traded it for crack cocaine. Police arrested him.

But then, witnesses began implicating Myers instead. A later November 30 police report said Ballentine was released “on a joint recommendation” by the police department and district attorney’s office because “new evidence” suggested the witnesses lied about Ballentine selling the VCR. Now Myers, newly identified as the person who brought the VCR to the drug house, was the suspect.

The VCR used against Myers was eventually identified as Tucker’s through the serial number and was never tied to Myers by fingerprints or other forensic evidence. The petition for a new trial argues the original accounts were more consistent with the evidence. One witness said Ballentine was wearing a bloodstained white shirt, according to the initial October 18 police report. CNN was unable to reach Ballentine for comment.

In 2004, one of the witnesses, Marzell Ewing, wrote a declaration for the courts on behalf of Myers, saying he lied in his trial testimony because of pressure and he did not see who brought the VCR.

One of the jurors who sat through his trial, Mae Puckett, wrote a letter in 2011, urging Alabama to spare Myers’ life.

“Mr. Myers’ son testified and basically begged us to spare his father’s life,” she wrote. “That is a part of the trial that I wish I could forget.”

Puckett, one of the 11 White jurors, could not forget how deeply “unfair” the trial felt.

“I do not want to sit in silence while someone I believe to be innocent is executed,” Puckett wrote.

Even Mays maintains he is innocent, Jaffe emphasized.

“People on crack testified for the state, and when they testified for the state, they lied, and that’s what the jury chose to believe,” Jaffe told CNN.

Myers also has an intellectual disability, an issue Miriam Bankston, the chief investigator on Myers’ legal team, said affected how he interacted with police and his attorneys. Yet after his conviction, the lawyer appointed to handle his appeal abandoned the case entirely, filing nothing, she added.

Myers missed his chance to have claims of innocence and other constitutional issues heard in court, according to the state. Eventually, a letter arrived telling him he had missed multiple state and federal court deadlines — a letter his lawyers said he could not read himself.

Despite the jury recommending life without parole, the judge went against their wishes and imposed a state execution. Alabama has since abolished judicial override, the practice that allowed judges to order the state to kill a person even though a jury of one’s peers requested otherwise.

Myers’ lawyers argue his own defense attorney helped turn the jury against him. In his opening statement, Mays described Myers’ neighborhood as “the very pit of hell” and told jurors, “You’re people who are not used to being around criminals. You’re people who are not used to being around crackheads.”

“He was just up there calling him a crackhead, calling him a no-good, wasn’t good for society,” Hood said. “Like he didn’t have a mother that loved him, or kids, or a wife. He was just up there talking about him like he was nothing.”

When asked about Mays’ use of that language to describe Myers during the trial, Jaffe pointed instead to the outcome Mays secured: “How did he get a life verdict in a place where a Black man stabbed a White woman? I know that the performance he did (got) a life verdict for Rocky, who was innocent, in spite of the fact that crackheads lied.”

The petition argues Mays’ language during the trial revealed something deeper than a poor defense strategy — a worldview that dehumanized the man he was supposed to defend.

“Mr. Myers was a family man who lived with his wife and children,” Mitchell McGuire, Myers’ current attorney, wrote in the petition. “Yes, they were poor. And, yes, Mr. Myers struggled with addiction issues. But they were good, decent people, just not White.”

The state, he argued, was asking the court to dismiss the history of Mays’ klan advocacy as nothing more than “stale newspaper gossip,” even though the history goes directly to the question of whether Myers received a fair defense at the most consequential proceeding of his life, McGuire wrote in his response.

While the state’s decision is another setback in a legal fight that has stretched across more than 30 years, the fight for Myers and his family is not over yet.

Myers’ case has haunted many. Perhaps none more than Hood, who was 12 when he testified for his father.

He told the judge he was lying in bed with his dad watching a New York Giants game while his three siblings were coloring and playing with toys when ambulance lights flashed across their window. “Son, what’s going (on) out there don’t have nothing to do with us,” Hood told CNN, recalling his father soothing him.

For three decades, Hood has waited for his father to come home. He still mourns what he lost but tries to swallow the anger and grief to make space in his heart for the seed of hope to bloom.

He is 47 now, with a son of his own, but he still calls Rocky “Daddy.”

“My father really shouldn’t be in there,” Hood said. “They don’t have no evidence on him at all.” He speaks of feeling betrayed by his country and government and wants the case back in court, believing everything uncovered over the years could give his father the chance he never had.

Myers admits the mistakes he made before prison, including drug use, but his first day behind bars became the first day of decades of sobriety. He has learned to forgive even those he feels betrayed him, including Mays.

“It hurts he’s like that. Whatever he did to me is over with,” Myers said. “I’m not really bitter or nothing about that.” What remains is the belief that his life can still become something other than the story told about him.

“I am not who they say I am. I’m not no killer,” he continues. “When the judge sentenced me, he told me that I was a threat to society and it broke my heart. I literally cried over that.”

It is a story that sits uneasily inside the history of Alabama, a state whose past is still visible through the cracks in its institutions. By August 25, the district attorney must decide whether to seek to vacate Myers’ conviction or if the story needs to be heard by a jury again.

The prison gives Myers and Hood only 15 minutes at a time to talk. They fill them with ordinary things — Giants, the Yankees, news about Myers’ grandchildren. Once, Myers celebrated a Knicks win from one side of the prison wall while Hood cheered from the other. For a moment, they were simply father and son again.

Myers has lost many years, memories and dreams, but he has not lost faith.

“What I’m gonna do?” He ponders the question. “I’m just gonna keep on believing that I’m gonna get out of here.”

Myers has resisted giving in to the rotting fester of anger. He finds joy in simple things – music, passing on wisdom to the young men imprisoned with him, making friends.

The same flat, automated woman’s voice that announced the beginning of the call now announces its end.

“One minute remaining on the call.”

Myers rushes to say what he misses most about the world beyond the prison walls.

“I miss my family because I love, love, love my family,” he said. There is a smile in his voice. Then the line clicks.

And just like that, Rocky Myers is cut off from the world again.

电话铃响了。咔哒一声，一个女人用严肃、单调的语气朗读了一段自动语音留言。

“您正在接听来自圣克莱尔惩教所的电话。要接听此电话，请按5。本次通话将被录音，并随时可能受到监控。”

电话线再次咔哒一声，新的声音传进了听筒。

身穿卡其色连体服的罗宾·“洛基”·迈尔斯正在阿拉巴马州一所监狱的娱乐场里打电话，这所监狱位于伯明翰东北方向约30英里处。几分钟内，监狱的喧嚣仿佛都隐没在他的声音背后。

他下午一直在外面，真希望永远都不要再回去了。

“我被关在同一个牢房里31年了。我不想再待在里面了。等我出去后，我不要房子，不要公寓，我想要一辆车，可以开到任何地方，”他坚定地说，语气中带着一种久经沙场、渴望拥有大多数人习以为常的东西的笃定。

“我渴望自由。”

黑人男子迈尔斯于1994年被判处死刑，罪名是谋杀他的白人邻居卢迪·梅·塔克。他坚称自己没有犯下此罪。法庭文件显示，没有DNA证据将他与犯罪现场联系起来，塔克在现场被刺中心脏身亡。

他的定罪基于间接证据和证人证词，迈尔斯的律师称这些证词不可靠，其中包括一名后来翻供的证人。几乎全部由白人组成的陪审团建议判处他终身监禁不得假释，但法官驳回了陪审团的建议，判处他死刑。

现在代表迈尔斯的律师们希望，有关最初被指派为他辩护的律师的新信息，最终能够为他带来他奋斗了几十年的自由。

“他的律师根本不在乎他，”迈尔斯的儿子勒安德鲁·胡德告诉 CNN。

但8月24日，摩根县地方检察官代表州政府提交了一份反对迈尔斯推翻定罪申请的简报，这让迈尔斯的希望变得渺茫。8月28日，摩根县巡回法院法官查尔斯·艾略特同意地方检察官的意见，驳回了迈尔斯的申请。这一挫折至少暂时搁置了迈尔斯与家人团聚的梦想。

据CNN报道，迈尔斯的律师表示，他的法律团队已于10月8日向阿拉巴马州刑事上诉法院提起上诉。目前尚不清楚法院何时会对迈尔斯的上诉作出裁决。

“我知道我可能会在监狱里度过余生，”迈尔斯在得知自己的请愿再次被驳回后在一封信中写道，“但我仍然抱有希望，并祈祷能有更好的结果。”

迈尔斯是四个孩子的父亲，多年来一直被判处死刑。2025年，随着行刑日期的临近，阿拉巴马州州长凯·艾维赦免了他，将他的死刑改判为终身监禁，不得假释。艾维是一位坚定的死刑支持者，也是一位共和党人。她表示，由于迈尔斯的罪行存在诸多疑点，她不能允许执行死刑。

但赦免并没有回答一个更大的问题：阿拉巴马州是否准备让一个坚称自己没有犯下罪行的人死在监狱里？

摘自《路易斯维尔信使日报》

迈尔斯被捕受审时，美国距离吉姆·克劳法的正式废除仅仅过去了一代人的时间。种族隔离的阴影仍然笼罩着美国社会。三K党虽然势力不如以往，但并未消失。它仍在集会，宣扬种族仇恨。

在 20 世纪 70 年代和 80 年代公开为三K党辩护，并在法庭案件中代表他们的律师中，有一位名叫约翰·埃德蒙·梅斯的律师。

1987年，美国联合三K党被勒令支付700万美元赔偿金，以了结1981年黑人少年迈克尔·唐纳德惨遭谋杀的案件。唐纳德的尸体在阿拉巴马州莫比尔市的一棵树上被发现。他被三K党成员绑架、殴打并杀害，以报复一名警察被杀——唐纳德与此案毫无关系——并恐吓黑人陪审员，阻止他们做出有利于黑人被告的裁决。

据南方贫困法律中心主席理查德·科恩（Richard Cohen）称，梅斯在该案中为三K党辩护。科恩是代表唐纳德家人的律师之一。

据1987年《布法罗新闻报》的一篇文章报道，梅斯在法庭上称唐纳德的谋杀案是“令人发指的暴行”，但他辩称该组织本身不应为此负责。美国联合三K党最高领导人、帝国巫师罗伯特·谢尔顿告诉陪审团：“白人至上主义只是一个政治目标，仅此而已。”

1992年，梅斯成为迈尔斯的律师。

梅斯拒绝接受 CNN 的采访，但他的朋友兼同行律师理查德·贾菲转达了他的声明。

“我接手洛基的案子是因为我痛恨死刑，而且我觉得我能为他提供有效的辩护，”梅斯通过贾菲告诉CNN。他是由摩根县巡回法院指派为迈尔斯辩护的。

贾菲表示，他已获得梅斯的许可接受 CNN 的采访。他认为，梅斯之前代表三K党的行为并不会削弱他为迈尔斯或其他黑人客户提供的“有效且充满热情”的辩护，而他至今仍在继续为这些客户提供辩护。

“在那个小镇上，他这么做并不受欢迎。想想《杀死一只知更鸟》吧，”贾菲告诉CNN，他指的是哈珀·李的小说，讲述的是在种族隔离时期的南方，一名黑人男子被诬告强奸了一名白人女子，而为他辩护的是一名白人男子。“洛基应该得到重审，但这并非因为约翰，”他后来补充道。

几十年来，维权人士和迈尔斯的法律团队一直在深入调查他的案件。据迈尔斯在联邦人身保护令诉讼中的律师之一凯西·基顿称，他们发现的并非一个孤立的错误，而是一系列的失误，包括迈尔斯的代理律师。

“一个面临生死审判的黑人绝不会选择这样的人做他的律师，”基顿说道。他从2007年到2025年一直担任迈尔斯的辩护律师，直到迈尔斯获得减刑。“在阿拉巴马州，如果你又穷又黑，你只能得到州政府给你的。而这就是他们给罗基·迈尔斯的。”

贾菲告诉CNN，梅斯否认自己是三K党成员。贾菲说，梅斯只是三K党的律师。

尽管梅斯多次在法庭上为三K党辩护，但迈尔斯的律师辩称，他的参与超出了律师的角色，并引用了存档的报纸报道和照片，称这些资料将梅斯描绘成三K党的公开辩护人。

据《萨福克新闻先驱报》报道，梅斯在1977年弗吉尼亚州的一次三K党集会上说：“你经常听到关于黑鬼（指种族歧视用语）的公民权利、杀人犯的公民权利以及人类已知的各种变态的公民权利。但是，那些体面守法的白人，或者守法的黑人，他们的公民权利又该如何保障呢？”

当被问及报纸报道时，贾菲表示，梅斯帮助三K党领袖谢尔顿获得了集会许可，并后悔参加了集会。

贾菲说，梅斯还对使用“N”字表示后悔，并将此归咎于在种族隔离的南方“种族主义环境”中长大。

“如果约翰代表的是三K党成员，那也不能说明他是种族主义者，”贾菲告诉CNN。

迈尔斯的律师们看到了更令人担忧的事情，他们认为梅斯的过往经历影响了迈尔斯的审判，损害了这位黑人男子的辩护，而他的生命正取决于迈尔斯。

2025年8月，迈尔斯获得赦免后，他的律师们抓住他们认为的机会，提交了一份请愿书，请求法官撤销对他的定罪，理由是迈尔斯是无辜的，而且他最初辩护中的种种缺陷使得他的定罪从根本上来说是不可靠的。

代表阿拉巴马州的摩根县地方检察官办公室于 2026 年 3 月对该请愿书提出异议。迈尔斯的律师于 5 月提交了答复。

威廉·威德默/重制版

地方检察官于 8 月 24 日提交了答辩状，再次反对迈尔斯的请愿，并采纳了其在驳回动议中提出的先前论点。

州政府辩称，迈尔斯试图通过将其重新包装成利益冲突论点来恢复他之前提出的律师无效辩护的过时主张，但他未能履行举证责任，证明之前的三K党案件实际上与他自己的案件存在冲突。

摩根县巡回法院法官同意州政府的意见，决定不举行听证会驳回该请愿。

基顿告诉CNN，如果听证会举行，迈尔斯的律师就能拿出证据，证明梅斯“存在利益冲突，以至于无法提供辩护，也无法提供无罪证据，甚至有证人作伪证”。“在这样的听证会上，地方检察官会决定在多大程度上反对罗基的陈述，又在多大程度上接受罗基的陈述。”

法官随后将决定迈尔斯是否已履行其举证责任，证明其定罪应该被推翻。

在驳回迈尔斯请愿的裁决中，埃利奥特法官并未就梅斯是否为三K党工作以及这可能对其为迈尔斯辩护产生的影响发表意见。法官仅用一句话提及了这一指控，然后以程序性理由驳回了请愿，并未对其进行审查。

迈尔斯在一封信中写道，他的请愿被驳回“令人困惑”。这封信是在莉亚·尼尔森的帮助下写成的，莉亚·尼尔森是一位研究员和顾问，她已经为迈尔斯的案件工作了十多年，并且住在蒙哥马利。

“我可以放下愤怒，但悲伤却截然不同。在我被监禁期间，太多人去世了。我的母亲，抚养我们长大的哥哥……几个月前，我的女儿也去世了，”迈尔斯在信中写道。他还描述了自己通过视频会议参加女儿葬礼的情景。

“我有一些从未谋面的孙辈。不认识自己的骨肉，这种感觉很难受。当我幻想自己获得自由时，我梦想的就是和家人在一起。”

迈尔斯的法律团队不打算放弃，他们又提起了一项上诉，这次是向阿拉巴马州刑事上诉法院提起的。

基顿表示，双方将就迈尔斯在上诉通知书中提出的问题提交书面论证。法院可能会允许进行口头辩论，但并非必须，之后将作出准予或驳回上诉的裁决。

目前尚无明确的时间表，说明何时会做出新的决定，或者迈尔斯争取自由的下一步计划何时出炉。

现在，迈尔斯的案件面临着这样一个问题：在有争议的证词和由一位曾为视你这样的人为非人的组织效力十年的辩护律师领导的定罪中，你的审判是否公正？

迈尔斯的律师表示，导致他被定罪的核心证据与围绕此案的辩护一样令人不安，并且本身也引发了一些问题。

1991年10月4日，受害者因伤势过重去世。她生前曾描述袭击者是一名身材矮壮的黑人男子——迈尔斯的律师辩称，这一描述表明迈尔斯是无辜的；他是受害者的邻居，经常来她家买冰块。律师们认为，如果迈尔斯真是袭击者，受害者完全可以指认出他的名字，或者直接说他是邻居。

调查人员最初怀疑安东尼·“清风”·巴伦廷是嫌疑人，因为受害者卢迪·梅·塔克的家中一台录像机被盗。三名目击者称，他们看到巴伦廷带着录像机出现在附近一处毒窝，据称他用录像机换取了可卡因。警方随后将其逮捕。

但随后，证人开始指认迈尔斯。11月30日的一份警方报告称，巴伦丁因“新证据”表明证人关于他出售录像机的证词撒谎，而被警方和地方检察官办公室“联合建议”释放。现在，迈尔斯——被新认定为将录像机带到毒窝的人——成了嫌疑人。

最终，警方通过序列号确认用于指控迈尔斯的录像机属于塔克，指纹或其他法医证据均未将其与迈尔斯联系起来。要求重审的请愿书辩称，最初的证词与证据更为吻合。根据10月18日的警方初步报告，一名证人称巴伦廷当时身穿一件沾有血迹的白衬衫。CNN未能联系到巴伦廷置评。

2004 年，其中一名证人马泽尔·尤因代表迈尔斯向法庭提交了一份声明，称迈尔斯在审判证词中撒谎是因为受到了压力，而且他没有看到是谁带来了录像机。

2011 年，陪审团成员之一梅·帕克特写了一封信，敦促阿拉巴马州饶恕迈尔斯的性命。

“迈尔斯先生的儿子出庭作证，苦苦哀求我们饶他父亲一命，”她写道。“我真希望自己能忘记审判中的这一部分。”

帕克特是 11 名白人陪审员之一，他始终无法忘记这场审判带给他的深深的“不公”。

“我不想眼睁睁地看着我认为无辜的人被处决而保持沉默，”帕克特写道。

贾菲强调，就连梅斯本人也坚称自己是无辜的。

“吸食可卡因的人为州政府作证，当他们为州政府作证时，他们撒了谎，而陪审团却选择相信他们的话，”贾菲告诉 CNN。

迈尔斯还患有智力障碍，迈尔斯法律团队的首席调查员米里亚姆·班克斯顿表示，这个问题影响了他与警方和律师的互动方式。然而，她补充说，在他被定罪后，负责他上诉的律师却完全放弃了此案，什么也没提交。

据州政府称，迈尔斯错过了在法庭上申辩无罪及其他宪法问题的机会。最终，他收到了一封信，告知他错过了多个州法院和联邦法院的截止日期——他的律师说他自己根本看不懂这封信。

尽管陪审团建议判处终身监禁不得假释，但法官却违背了他们的意愿，下令由州政府执行死刑。阿拉巴马州后来废除了司法否决权，即允许法官在陪审团提出相反建议的情况下，仍下令由州政府处死某人的做法。

迈尔斯的律师辩称，是他自己的辩护律师帮助陪审团对他产生了不利影响。梅斯在开庭陈述中将迈尔斯居住的社区形容为“人间地狱”，并告诉陪审员们：“你们不习惯与罪犯为伍，你们不习惯与瘾君子为伍。”

“他当时就在台上骂他是瘾君子，说他是废物，对社会没好处，”胡德说。“好像他没有爱他的母亲，没有孩子，没有妻子似的。他当时就在台上说他什么都不是。”

当被问及梅斯在审判期间用那种语言描述迈尔斯时，贾菲反而指出了梅斯最终取得的判决结果：“在一个黑人刺伤白人女性的地方，他怎么能获得终身监禁的判决？我知道他（梅斯）的表演为无辜的洛基赢得了终身监禁的判决，尽管那些瘾君子撒了谎。”

请愿书认为，梅斯在审判期间的言论揭示了比糟糕的辩护策略更深层次的问题——一种将他本应辩护的人非人化的世界观。

“迈尔斯先生是个顾家的男人，和妻子儿女一起生活，”迈尔斯的现任律师米切尔·麦奎尔在请愿书中写道。“没错，他们很穷。没错，迈尔斯先生也曾饱受毒瘾困扰。但他们都是善良正直的人，只是不是白人。”

麦奎尔在回应中写道，州政府要求法院驳回梅斯支持三K党的历史，称其不过是“陈旧的报纸八卦”，尽管这段历史直接关系到迈尔斯在他一生中最重要的诉讼程序中是否得到了公平的辩护。

尽管州政府的决定是这场持续了 30 多年的法律斗争中的又一次挫折，但迈尔斯和他的家人的斗争还没有结束。

迈尔斯的案件令许多人耿耿于怀。其中最令胡德难以释怀的或许就是他了，当年他为父亲作证时年仅12岁。

他告诉法官，当时他正和父亲躺在床上看纽约巨人队的比赛，他的三个兄弟姐妹则在涂色和玩玩具，突然救护车的灯光闪过他们的窗户。“儿子，外面发生的事跟我们没关系，”胡德告诉CNN，回忆起父亲当时安慰他的情景。

三十年来，胡德一直盼望着父亲回家。他依然为失去的父亲感到悲痛，但他努力压抑住愤怒和悲伤，让心中的希望种子得以萌芽。

他现在 47 岁了，有了自己的儿子，但他仍然称呼洛基为“爸爸”。

“我父亲根本不应该被关在那里，”胡德说。“他们根本没有任何证据。”他表示自己感到被国家和政府背叛，希望案件能重回法庭，他相信多年来发现的一切或许能给他父亲一个从未有过的机会。

迈尔斯承认入狱前犯下的错误，包括吸毒，但他入狱的第一天却开启了长达数十年的戒毒生涯。他学会了原谅那些他认为背叛过他的人，包括梅斯。

“他那样做让我很伤心。不过，他以前对我做过的事都过去了，”迈尔斯说。“我并不怨恨他，或者对此毫无怨恨。”他仍然相信，他的人生可以摆脱人们口口相传的关于他的故事。

“我不是他们说的那种人。我不是杀人犯，”他继续说道。“法官宣判时说我对社会构成威胁，这让我心碎。我当时真的哭了。”

这个故事与阿拉巴马州的历史格格不入，这个州的过去仍然在其制度的裂缝中若隐若现。8月25日之前，地方检察官必须决定是否寻求撤销迈尔斯的定罪，或者是否需要将此案再次交由陪审团审理。

监狱每次只允许迈尔斯和胡德交谈15分钟。他们聊的都是些家常便饭——巨人队、洋基队，还有迈尔斯孙辈们的消息。有一次，尼克斯队赢球，迈尔斯在监狱围墙的一侧庆祝，胡德则在另一侧欢呼。那一刻，他们仿佛又变回了父子。

迈尔斯失去了许多年的光阴、回忆和梦想，但他并没有失去信念。

“我该怎么办？”他沉思着。“我只能继续相信自己能离开这里。”

迈尔斯一直努力克制自己，不让愤怒的毒瘤吞噬自己。他从简单的事物中找到快乐——音乐、将智慧传授给与他同狱的年轻人、结交朋友。

通话开始时那个平淡、机械的女声，现在也用来宣布通话结束。

“通话还剩一分钟。”

迈尔斯急忙说出他最怀念监狱外世界的什么。

“我想念我的家人，因为我非常非常爱我的家人，”他说。他的声音里带着一丝笑意。然后电话挂断了。

就这样，洛基·迈尔斯再次与世隔绝了。