DNA testing could exonerate man 13 years after he was executed for rape, murder

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - If Sedley Alley was unfairly denied DNA testing from a 1985 crime scene and then executed, he'd be the only person in the state of Tennessee to suffer such a fate, argued Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, in court Monday.

“Only he,” Scheck said. “He is in a class of one.”

Alley was executed in 2006 for the rape and murder of Suzanne Collins, 19, whose body was found outside the Millington naval base where she was stationed.

Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan heard arguments from attorneys for The Innocence Project, a nonprofit that advocates for DNA testing and criminal justice reform, and the state in a hearing Monday.

April Alley, Sedley Alley's daughter, filed the petition to have DNA from the crime scene tested in her role as executor of her father's estate. She is represented by attorneys from the Innocence Project. 

Skahan is expected to rule on the petition for post-conviction relief on Nov. 18.

The body of Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Collins was found early morning in 1985 in Edmund Orgill Park. An autopsy showed she had been struck at least 100 times and strangled. She had been sexually assaulted and impaled with a tree branch.

Alley initially denied any involvement, but later signed a statement admitting to killing Collins. Details of his statement contradicted the crime scene and autopsy, and a witness' description of a suspect didn't match Alley's physical appearance.

Later, Alley would say he did not remember the crime and that he had been coerced into confessing.

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“This has all the earmarks of a false confession,” Scheck said. “But we need not debate it, because DNA evidence can provide us an answer.”

Alley was executed by lethal injection on June 28, 2006, with his daughter present at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

Questions of Tennessee law at center of arguments

Some of the arguments made Monday were arguments Scheck had made before, when Alley was still alive. Then, Scheck had argued that stains on the t-shirt that Collins was wearing and on her bra should be tested, as well as DNA from red underwear found by her body that the prosecution had argued belonged to the assailant.

Tennessee courts denied the petitions for DNA testing prior to Alley’s execution, and much of the argument Monday centered around whether a 2011 ruling by the Tennessee Supreme Court — issued five years after Alley’s execution — would have entitled him to DNA testing had he still been alive.  

Scheck argued that the ruling was “clear” and that “if (Alley) were alive today, he would get testing.”

“Common sense tells you that,” Scheck said.

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Steve Jones, assistant district attorney general, argued that the circumstances of that Tennessee Supreme Court ruling were different than Alley’s case and that Alley already had full due process.

"He would not be entitled to post-conviction DNA testing if he were alive today," Jones said. 

Jones also argued that Tennessee law guarantees a right to post-conviction relief for "a person convicted or sentenced.” In this case, the petition was filed by the estate for Sedley Alley, not the person, he said, making it not applicable.

A tip led to renewed quest for DNA testing

The Innocence Project decided to become involved years after Alley’s execution when it learned a man had been arrested for murder and previously charged with rape. That man had gone to the same training school as Collins and matched a suspect description, Scheck said. They also had suspicions about a boyfriend of Collins.

“We got that communication and we asked that question: Oh my god, is the evidence still there?” Scheck said.

The evidence from 1985 remains in storage in Shelby County. The petition asks that 17 items be tested.

“The primary reason we are here is April Alley wants to know the truth,” Scheck said. “She has the courage to seek the truth here and DNA testing can, as it has in hundreds of post-conviction cases since we founded the Innocence Project 28 years ago, provide that truth.”

The goal of the DNA analysis statute is not just to exonerate the innocent, Scheck said, but also to identify actual assailants. Their petition asks that the DNA be compared with preserved samples of Sedley Alley's DNA as well as the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS).

Death row exonerees attend in support

April Alley was present at the hearing Monday, sitting beside her lawyers. She didn’t take questions from the media.

Also present were three people who have been exonerated from death row: Kirk Bloodsworth, Sabrina Butler and Ray Krone.

Bloodsworth, the first American sentenced to death to be exonerated by DNA testing, spoke about his own conviction for the rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl before DNA proved his innocence and allowed the true assailant to be identified. 

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While Sedley Alley was alive, Bloodsworth had spoken before the Board of Probation and Parole on Alley’s behalf.

“I was very disturbed,” Bloodsworth said. "I thought you should test the DNA. At the end of the day, this is all we’re trying to do. We have a criminal justice system that’s adversarial in nature, but it cannot be adversarial to the truth. In my opinion, we should test it.”

Butler became the first woman exonerated from death row after being convicted of killing her nine-month-old son.

On Monday, she spoke about the pain of losing her son and expressed her sympathy for April Alley.

“To feel her pain and know that she just wants the truth, she just wants to know, and is that so wrong?” Butler asked. “Is that so wrong?”

Follow Katherine Burgess on Twitter @kathsburgess.