Revisionist History - The Alabama Murders - Part 3: A Peculiar Institution

Episode Date: October 9, 2025

Colbert County. May 1989. One of the men charged with  Elizabeth Sennett’s murder stands trial. But the prosecution’s case has  problematic inconsistencies. His fate comes down to the jury’s decision –– at least at first. Get early, ad-free access to the full season of The Alabama Murders by subscribing to Pushkin+ on Apple Podcasts or Pushkin.fm. Pushkin+ subscribers can access ad-free episodes, full audiobooks, exclusive binges, and bonus content for all Pushkin shows. Subscribe on Apple: apple.co/pushkinSubscribe on Pushkin: pushkin.com/plusSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Malcolm Gladwell here. I'm excited to share that Revisionist History is a Signal Awards finalist in two categories. The Signal Awards recognize the top podcasts that define culture. Our episode, The Joe Rogan Intervention, is up for Best Conversation Starter, and our episode, Running Hot, is up for best writing. We're thrilled to be nominated, and from now until October 9th, you can help us win by voting for us. Vote at

Vote.Signalward.com. That's vote. dot signal signail award.com. We're thankful for your support. Bushkin. Hello, hello, Malcolm here.

Before we get to the episode, I want to let you know you can get this entire season now, ad-free. By subscribing to revisionist history on Pushkin Plus. Sign up on the show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm.fm. slash plus. Pushkin Plus subscribers can access

ad-free episodes, full audiobooks, exclusive binges, and bonus content for all Pushkin shows. Previously on Revisionist History. 35 years. That's how long, Elizabeth's and its family waited for justice to occur. He backhanded his child. I don't know what the child had done.

You just don't do that to a child across its face. 35 long years. And I answered the call, and I got all the information on who done it, who was all involved, and all the particulars. The viciousness was there that he could do something like that. I don't know. When Elizabeth Senate was murdered, Patterson Hood, one of the lead singers of the legendary Southern rock band The Drive-By Truckers was living in the shoals.

Obviously, it was the big front-page story for, you know, weeks because it was such a horrific, grisly murderer and all of the different, as more details started coming out about it, you know, know, it just kept getting worse and worse. He was 24, working at a pharmacy in Florence, looking for a way out. They closed the Ford plant in 1982, which was the year I graduated from high school. And when it was gone, not only was it gone, but then all these other businesses that depended on people who made the money working at the Ford plant, that stuff started going. It's really bounced back in the last 15, 20 years.

years, the town's almost unrecognizable because of all the really positive things that have happened. But in 88, it was pretty fucking grim. Years went by, and the story of what happened to Elizabeth's Senate stayed with him. I don't know why it resonated with me, but I first started writing it thinking in terms of writing it more as like a short story or a book or something like that. And I kind of wrote it in that form, and then at some point started and turning it and into a song. The song was called The Fireplace Poker. He released it on the album Go-Go Boots, which came out in 2011.

Maybe you've heard it before. Red Reran had his wife run in by God, new in high school. He and a friend should do her in and make it look like a rock. Patterson Hood got his inspiration from what one of the regulars in that Florence drugstore, a local police officer, told him back in 1988.

He was the chief of police in Florence, and so he was all up in any police business anywhere in the area, whether it was in his jurisdiction or not. So he would come in and just talk about stuff, and it was interesting to hear, for sure. He theorized really early on that it wasn't like it was supposed to be looking like it was. What everyone first thought was that Elizabeth Senate had been murdered by two local kids, Kenny Smith and John Forrest Parker. They were the ones who drove out to Coondog Cemetery Road on that March morning. It was Parker's knife found in the pond behind the house.

They confessed they were charged with capital murder. everything that would happen in the Senate case over the course of the next 35 years, the controversies, the outrage, the moral calamity that would ultimately take place in home and prison, was based on the assumption that the justice system in Alabama had correctly determined who was responsible for what happened that morning. Namely, Charles Senate was the mastermind who ordered the hit on his wife, and Parker and Smith were the killers. But that's not what the Florence.

police chief, told Patterson Hood. Whoever in came home from work and found Mrs. Dine. Life was falling from her grasp, but still she lay there trying. No one would ever know what she told. her because the reverend did his wife in 15 wax fireplace poker The reverent came home from work and found the missus dying life was falling from her grasp but still she lay there trying

No one will ever know what she told him or know what he told her because the reverend did his wife in 15 wax, fireplace poker. Wait, the Reverend did his wife in? My name is Malcolm Globwell. You're listening to my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This episode of the Alabama murders is about the trial of John Forrest Parker, one of the three young men charged in the killing of Elizabeth Senate. And all of the ways, the catastrophe that unfolded in the shoals, the failure cascades set in motion by the murder, could have been averted.

The counterfactual version of events, the what-ifs. Episode 3, a peculiar institution. I've had, you know, other cases that technically were probably factually more complex, but this is, yeah, this is the one that is still on my mind, even without child coming. Tom Hufflin was John Forrest Parker's attorney. He remembers exactly where he was the day Elizabeth Senate was murdered. I had been to Red Bay, Alabama, which is on the Mississippi border, down the same highway where this happened. I may well have seen John Forrest Parker and Kenny Smith in their car. I don't know that for a fact, but it may well have.

Then I got the call that the court was going to appoint me and Gene Hanby to represent it. Heflin is the son of the former U.S. senator from Alabama, Howell Heflin. In his living room, Heflin has a portrait of his famous father, and father and son look very much alike. The Heflins have large leonine heads and the kind of rumbling southern gravitas. So you are court-appointed attorneys. Quarter-appointed attorneys. Yeah, yeah. How much of your practice would have been that kind of work in those days?

Zero. This is unusual. So why, how did it come about? I think we'd had a string of capital murder cases. You know, everybody kind of is expected to serve. Parker's trial took place in May of 1989 at the Colbert County Courthouse, a graceful white neoclassical building

on the town square in the center of Tuscumbia. All right, we're at the Cobbock County Courthouse. If we look across, you see a three-story building with a razor wire around it and a fence. That's the county jail. Halfland gave my colleague Ben Nadav Haferi a tour of the courthouse. Well, we don't have full lights. The courtroom was small, gray and white.

On the wall, there's a portrait of the judge in the Parker case, Inga Johnson, long blonde hair, blue eyes. So where did you guys sit? There. And so the jury box, that's interesting. It sort of faces the judge. The jury box is there. Witness would be there, court clerk over there, obviously judge, court reporter here. Like, some of the jurors would have had like a direct view of John, like from feet away.

Yeah, he would have been probably, we probably would have sat him there. I think we did. Well, because inside where we block him off to a certain extent. Why do you want to block him off? Well, he is shackled. You know, that's basically I just don't want to emphasize. that he is a prisoner at that point. Even everybody knows he is.

Most criminal trials, particularly older ones, don't have an audio or video record. There's just a transcript created by the court reporter. The transcripts can run for thousands of pages, and they're their own unique literary form. Because there's no description or elaboration or context, they read as flat, banal. It takes a little bit of time to learn how to use your imagination to fill in the empty spaces.

And in the case of John Parker, what becomes clear when you learn how to fill in those empty spaces is that the prosecution's case was really, really weak. The state's problems started with Parker, sitting there in the docket a few feet from the jurors. This was a case about a murder for hire, a contract kill. and he just didn't look the part of a contract killer. Tell us about Parker. Parker was like 18, actually a good family, solid people. He had some prior childhood trauma that I think probably created a little mental.

He had some drug problems. Tell me more about your impressions of him. a kid who had been drugged out and didn't know what they were doing. John Forrest Parker had been arrested on multiple occasions for minor crimes, breaking into cars, stealing gas. He'd failed ninth grade three times. In one of his psychiatric evaluations done after one of his previous arrests, there's this, quote.

John's childhood history includes a brain concussion at the age of two. He reportedly was unconscious for 36 hours, following his concussion. His parents reported that due to his brain concussion, they had not expected very much of John. On the drive to Kundark Cemetery Road, on the morning of Elizabeth Senate's murder, Parker and Smith had a bottle of whiskey

between them on the front seat. Parker injected himself with a healthy dose of opioids on the way over. Charles Sennett gave them some money to buy a gun. They used it to buy drugs instead. In every description of the crime, they come across as completely clueless. Parker is 19, Smith 22. They're so lackadaisical that after beating and stabbing Elizabeth Senate,

they threw the knife and the walking stick they used into the pond behind her house, when there are literally thousands of acres of wooded wilderness on the drive back home where something could be thrown away and it would never, ever be found. Yes, Parker and Smith hurt Elizabeth Senate badly and took money to commit acts of violence. But when we hear the phrase contract killers, we think of assassins. Mafia hitmen, stone-culled, hard-bitten, lethal. These were screwed up kids.

One of the biggest points of weakness for the prosecution emerged during the testimony of the surgeon who was on duty at Helen Keller Hospital, when Elizabeth Senate was brought into the ER. David Parks McKinley. He was the one who first saw her injuries, who tried to save her life, who pronounced her dead. The direct examination by the prosecutor is brief and to the point. The police had found a knife, a hunting knife, in the pond behind the Senate House. This was a knife that both Smith and Parker admitted to bringing with them to Coondock Cemetery Road. The prosecution just wanted to establish the connection between that knife and Elizabeth Sennett's death.

Question. Doctor, can you tell us what you recall about her physical appearance? Answer. The most striking thing was multiple stab wounds, particularly over the right side of the chest and at the base of the neck. There were also some wounds of the forehead and scalp.

McKinley testified that the cuts on the forehead and scalp looked like they were from a blunt object, the wounds to the chest and neck were caused by a knife. He went on to say, it is likely that the chest wounds were by and large the cause of her death. Prosecutor, thank you, doctor. That's all. Halfland knew the prosecution was calling McKinley,

so he did a little homework beforehand. We're starting trial on the Tuesday following Memorial Day. I know they're calling the state medical examiner was coming up to testify what the fatal wounds were describing and they were bringing the doctor who treated her in the emergency room there

and I called up the doctor and said, what are you going to say tomorrow? And we talked about it and visited kind of each other. What the doctor told him made Heflin realize he could lay a trap. So in court, Hefflin gets up and in cross-examination asks McKinley about the knife. Question. Have you ever been shown the knife

that the state removed from the pond in this case? Answer, I have not seen it, no, sir. Hefflin turns to the prosecutors. Do you all have the knife? This is one of those moments when the transcript is of little help. You have to fill in the empty space. The prosecutors are, anxious. They thought the identity of the murder weapon was a settled fact. So why does Heflin

want McKinley to see it? They hesitate. The judge immediately intervenes. Can I see y'all at the bench? Both sides huddle with the judge. The judge says to Heflin, do you just want to show him the knife? Hefflin says, uh-huh. The judge turns to the prosecutor. Why don't you get it? More hesitation from the prosecutors. The judge repeats herself. Y'all go, go. Get it. The prosecutor's rummage in their evidence box, take it out. Heflin hands it to the doctor. I asked Heflin to read aloud from the trial transcripts from the crucial moment of his exchange with McKinley. You saw the wounds inflicted on Miss Spendent Fresh when she came in the hospital, didn't you? Yes, sir, I said. Examining that knife, do you have any opinion whether or not that was the instrument that could have inflicted those wounds?

And McKinley answers, simply. I would frankly be surprised this was the knife based on what I saw or the sharp object based on what I saw on the patient. I don't have any further questions. The government's own witness testifies that the alleged murder weapon isn't actually the murder weapon. The chest wounds are of a much smaller knife. Yes. Then was, the neck wounds are consistent with the large knife that Kenny and John have.

The chest wounds, which are the fatal wounds, seem to be made by a smaller knife, and we can't find the smaller knife. That's right. From there, you would think, the reasonable doubts grow. Were Kenny Smith and John Parker actually the ones who stabbed Elizabeth Sennett to death? The pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Elizabeth Sennet's body testifies. She described Senate's chest wounds as rapidly fatal. When asked about this by prosecutors, she said bluntly, I don't think she lived very long after those wounds were inflicted.

Once again, one of the government's own witnesses undermines their case. Think about the timing. At 1144 in the morning, Charles Senate calls Ronnie May in hysterics to report that his wife has been attacked. At 1215, the paramedics discover that Elizabeth Senate has a pulse. At 1 p.m., she arrives at Helen Keller Hospital, and she's still alive. McKinley, in fact, doesn't pronounce her as dead until 205, a full hour later. But according to the prosecution's own witness, John Parker and Kenny Smith were back home in Florence by 11.30 that morning.

It's a 30-40-minute drive from Kundug Cemetery Road to Florence, and its pouring rain outside, the timing doesn't work. They must have left the Senate's house by at least 11. There's no way Parker and Smith could have inflicted rapidly fatal wounds at mid-morning if she was still alive at 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

Meaning, Smith and Parker must have been long gone by the time the fatal wounds were inflicted. Later in the trial, another pathologist who'd examined the Senate autopsy made the same point. Here is Heflin questioning him.

Question. If the evidence in this case shows that the Cherokee Rescue Squad detected a heartbeat on Mrs. Senate at approximately 1215 p.m. on March the 18th, 1988, based upon your years of experience as a pathologist, and your review of the exhibits that you just named, do you have an opinion as to what time prior to 1215 p.m. the fatal wounds were delivered? Answer, within a very few minutes. The judge, the jury, the lawyers on both sides, the journalists covering the trial, are all listening to this testimony with its unmistakable implication. Someone else must have stabbed Elizabeth Senate in the chest with a smaller knife.

And who was the only person at the house at the time of the 911 call? Charles Senate. If Senate does it, the timing makes a lot more sense. He shows up after they've left. Stabs come. Calls. Stabs and calls. Yeah.

Or even had called and then. Yeah. Yeah. A knife that doesn't fit, a timeline that makes no sense. And if the jury still had any lingering doubts about Charles Senate's culpability, there was also what they heard from Elizabeth Senat's friend, who had a front-row seat to the inner life of her marriage. That's after the break.

Malcolm Gladwell here. I'm excited to share that Revisionist history is a Signal Awards finalist in two categories. The Signal Awards recognize the top podcasts that define culture. Our episode, The Joe Rogan Intervention, is up for Best Conversation Starter, and our episode, Running Hot, is up for best writing. We're thrilled to be nominated, and from now until October 9th, you can help us win by voting for us. Vote at vote.orgnaWord.com. That's vote. Dot Signal, S-I-G-N-A-L Award.com. We're thankful for your support. Susan Mosley was a nurse at a weight loss

clinic in Muscle Shoals. Elizabeth Senate was one of her patients. And I noticed She was extremely quiet, introverted, no self-esteem, but was a brilliant, brilliant line. Mosley sat down with a local reporter named Lee Hedgebeth, who was written about the Senate case and did some interviews for us. She shared with him what she remembered about Elizabeth in the months leading up to the murder. So she would come once a week to the clinic, and I would go over her. I would wait her to her blood pressure, talk to her about, okay, how's your weight doing? Mosley said that Elizabeth Senate didn't seem happy. She would sit in the waiting room with a napkin crushed in her fist.

One day, Moseley decided to confront her. And I said, Liz, no, listen to him. You've been going up and down in your weight. So I'm going to close this chart. and I'm just going to turn it down and I'm going to shut my eyes and take a deep red and how about you

to close your eyes and just tell me what you think is the biggest problem if you eat potato chips like I do every night we'll get baked ones and we'll do something

to just let me know and I heard I nearly opened my eyes and I heard the chair Russell and I still felt it shut and she said I need to talk open your eyes

she said turn around here and I'll never forget I'll turn to my left I found around like this and she was standing there and I'm going to tell you before we go in and cover

I'm going to call she had on the blind the blouse and about an inch above where a short sleep would come all in the chest bigger fat

or butt on legs to a certain area where a skirt would come it was black black this Senate was covered in bruises

I got up and I had his whole bed I didn't ask no questions I didn't ask anything I had to button a little back up and now go like that and she sat down do you want to talk about this and she began to tell me to story

about her relationship when this was sitting she began to tell me that she didn't know how but that he was going to kill her and that she knew this and she had been saving her money

for the boys and then the attorney she was born to his one charge of $400. She said, I've worried about this and worried about this was once I'll do there. He will lose his shirt.

She said, I know I don't think all they'll be free with me before he kills me. She didn't know how, but he was going to kill her. And she didn't think she could break free. Mosley said she tried to help Elizabeth to find a way to leave Charles, leave the marriage. She told Elizabeth, you can come and live with me if you want.

She tried to help her find the words to communicate to her husband. It had to end. We would sit there and I would let me right after the airplane and say, okay, now, say, say this. Charles, we need to talk. I cannot continue to be able with all these litters, and then go to church on Sunday and we need to try to club our fathers, wear a long-sleeved shirt, and in a hundred degrees out.

Somebody is going to figure this out. I can't believe it is. Mosley gave a deposition to investigators, and her testimony was recounted to the jury by Ronnie May from the Colbert County Sheriff's Office in the flat, affectless tone of official speak. But even then, it's impossible to miss the power of what she saw. Listen, this is what May said.

Mrs. Mosley said that she had been told by Mrs. Senate that around Christmas of that year Charles' family came to visit and they had come up from Florida. Mrs. Senate stated that some of the family went hunting. She stated that Charles became extremely upset over some conversation between he and members of the family and Mrs. Senate stated that during that outburst of Christmas

with his family members, he laid down on the floor and screamed and cried and seemed to be paralyzed at different times. Mrs. Senate stated that this went on for some time at the house, and as a result, Charles's family left and returned to Florida. Mrs. Mosley stated that Mrs. Senate told her during this argument that Charles at one point had pulled and waved a gun in the direction of his father. On one of my visits to the shoals, I sat in Tom Hathlin's living room and tried to make

sense of all the things the jury learned about Charles Senate, who had taken his own life so quickly after his wife's murder. I mean, of all of these three potential murderers, Parker, Smith, and Senate, Senate is the only one with a documented history of violent, highly aggressive behavior. He's the one who beat his wife. To me, this is all about Charles Senate, the whole thing. He sets the whole thing in motion. He's the charismatic, persuasive adult who, he's a predator.

He really should be the one on trial. And without having gone back, maybe we didn't try him hard enough. This, I think, is what was on the police chief's mind when he gossiped about the case with Patterson Hood, lead singer at the drive-by truckers, at that drugstore in Florence. I can't remember how soon they figured out that he, that, you know, the preacher had finished the job and all that. But it was, you know, it was pretty obvious, pretty quick, you know, that those guys, they were fuck-ups. They took what was going to be a simple go-in, you know, kill her, make it look like a robbery, and turned it into this gruesome thing, and she was still alive. And so the preacher did what, you know, he then did. And, I mean, it's God, it's just such an awful story on every imaginable.

level. Which is why Patterson Hood wrote the crucial verse. told her because the river ended his wife in 15 wax fireplace poker To read the John Parker trial transcript with the full knowledge of what would happen over the following decades is to get angry, especially after what happened next.

The sentencing. Malcolm Gladwell here. I'm excited to share that Revisionist History is a Signal Awards finalist in two categories. The Signal Awards recognize the top podcasts that define culture. Our episode, The Joe Rogan Intervention, is up for Best Conversation Starter, and our episode, Running Hot, is up for best writing. to be nominated, and from now until October 9th, you can help us win by voting for us. Vote at vote.signalward.com. That's vote.orgnail.S-I-G-N-Award.com. We're thankful for your

support. What was it like when you were sequestered? We spent eight days over here in the Ramada Inn. Gary Highfield, foreman of the jury in the Parker trial, talking to my colleague bend the deaf halfrey. It was good. I mean, you know, they fed us. And, I mean, we got to go home and get clothes and all that kind of stuff. And then, you know, go down there. But they told us prepare for clothes for a week. We got them and, you know, went to a hotel. I mean, it was all good. Did you guys hang out when you were successful? No. We really, they told us not to, you know. We just kind of, we did get to go to the pool. We did go to the pool one day. Heifield was 30 years old at the time, married, one kid and another on the way, sold insurance.

He says, looking back, that the news coverage of the killing made the job with the defense very difficult. I think it kind of handcuffed them because people had an idea of what had happened. there was so much put out there beforehand and it's when you get something when a person gets something in their mind you know it's kind of hard to change

so when they heard all of the discrepancies about the timing and the weapon and the character of Charles Senate it was hard for them to square that with their understanding of John Parker he had agreed to go out to Kundag Cemetery Road he had admitted he brutally assaulted Elizabeth Senate. A dispassionate reading of the trial transcripts today, years later,

supports the idea that Parker should have been acquitted of the murder charge, just gotten something like conspiracy to commit murder or assault in the first degree. But this was a year after the crime, and it was very hard to be dispassionate. But, I mean, look, In that kind of situation, if you have, he, he meant to kill her with that pipe. I mean, if you mean to do something, you may not actually be the one that committed the death, the actual death, but torturing somebody that bad was, man, it was awful, dude. even if you're not even if you're not the one that was the one that fatally killed her you did you i mean it was proven that you did every bit of that stuff to this lady

i mean she might as well been dead but anyway uh i don't know it's just i mean i i don't even like to think about it too much i don't know which one of them killed her i really don't But I think both of them got what they probably deserved legally and morally. They found Parker guilty of murder. So Parker's attorney, Tom Heflin, lost that round. But the prosecution was asking for the death penalty, and here the jury hesitated.

The picture that Heflin had painted of his client as a mixed-up kid in over his head had left an impression. So the jury voted overwhelmingly 10 to 2 for life without parole. The jury didn't think Parker deserved to die. I just don't think some of these people that were on the jury, they didn't want that to be on their conscious the rest of their life putting somebody into the death penalty. At this point, the cascade could have stopped, right?

A cascade is unique as a category of catastrophe because it requires multiple stages in sequence. Remember our proverb from episode one, you need the nail, the shoe, the horse, the rider, the message, and the battle for the kingdom to be imperiled. And if any of those stages fall out along the way, if the rider loses his horse but quickly finds another, the kingdom is fine.

A life sentence for Parker brings the whole saga to a close because it means that Kenny Smith would almost certainly get a life sentence as well when his time came, and for all intents and purposes, the case would be closed. Justice would be served. The rider found another horse. The kingdom is just fine. Except that's not what happens. Why? Because this is Alabama. To understand what happens next requires a brief digression, into an obscure legal doctrine known as judicial override. Judicial override arose in the mid-1970s in response to the Supreme Court's insistence

that states be more rigorous in the way they use the death penalty. The court wanted standards, rules. So the court divided capital cases into two stages. First, a jury was required to rule on the defendant's guilt. Then the Supreme Court said it wanted juries to do something. they don't do in normal criminal cases. Decide on the appropriate sentence. Alabama's response was to pass the law

giving the final word to the judge. And if the judge wanted to override the jury's decision to turn, say, life without parole, into the death penalty, they could. A handful of states did something similar, like Florida. But in Florida, the law said that the judge had to give, quote, great weight to the jury's decision. In Alabama, a judge could do whatever they wanted,

and over the next 40 years, judges did just that. The override was used over a hundred times in Alabama, almost always to allow a judge to execute someone whose life the jury wanted to save, with judges saying all kinds of crazy things along the way, like the time an Alabama jury went easy on a murderer because he was mentally disabled, and the judge overrode them because, and I'm quoting,

the sociological literature suggests gypsies intentionally tests low on standard IQ tests. So, in the Parker trial, the jury rules in the first stage that he's guilty, and in the sentencing stage they say, no death penalty, life without parole. And what happens next? The judge, Inga Johnson, the one with a portrait on the wall in the courtroom, overrides the jury recommendation and sentences Parker to death. Heflin was not exactly surprised. When you heard her override decision, your reaction was, you saw it coming.

Saw it coming. Yeah. Do you, did she help? I think she, I think she, now, she's generally a good judge. I think she listened. I think she, you know, I'm not saying she had totally prejudged it, but I think she, you know, I think she, She doesn't give in her sentencing decision. She doesn't really give specific reasons

as to why she's overriding the jury's recommendation. In Alabama, you're not required to. The whole thing makes no sense, of course. If the Supreme Court wanted the states to make the application of the death penalty less arbitrary, How does just handing over power to judges to do whatever they want for whatever random reason fix the problem? Gary Highfield, the jury foreman, is still angry about it. What reason did I have to spend a week, over a week, in a jury, listening to this when she has the right to overturn my decision, our decision?

Yeah. I mean, I felt like it was no reason for me to even. even be there. That's the problem I have with. That's the only problem I have with the whole thing. I don't, I mean, I just felt, I felt useless spending all that time on a jury and then she has the right to come back. I mean, there's no sense in even having a jury if you, if you're going to be able to

overturn the jury, if a judge can overturn the jury. Parker gets sent to death row at Donaldson Prison in Bessemer, Alabama, just outside of Birmingham. This is 1989. His lawyers keep him alive, filing appeal after appeal. 13 years pass. He's still alive, and he gets one final chance, by way of a new Supreme Court case. In Ring v. Arizona, the court throws out Arizona's practice of allowing judges to make sentencing decisions independently of the jury in death penalty cases.

They said it violates the Sixth Amendment, which reads, in case you've forgotten, in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury. If your life is at stake, then what happens to you shouldn't be left up to the whims of whatever judge you were assigned. Only a jury should be allowed to make the call of life or death, and that protection is right there in the Constitution. In response, Indiana, which had an override statute on its books, shuts it down. Everyone on death row in Indiana, who was there because of a judge's override, gets their original life sentence back.

All eyes turned to Alabama. Surely they have to follow suit, right? John Parker's going to live. When I heard that it was done, I said, John's off, my feeling was John was off death row. This was 2002. For the next eight years, Parker got up every morning waiting for the same. state of Alabama to acknowledge the fact that the law that put him on death row was unconstitutional. He waits and waits.

Do you know when Alabama finally got around to abolishing judicial override? 2017, when it was too late to make any difference for Parker. In fact, it took Alabama 41 years to come to their census. And even then, they couldn't help themselves. They say, this reversal only applies to future cases. Anyone who's already on death row because of a judge's override in the previous 42 years stays on death row. In the years before the Civil War, there was a phrase southern slave owners would use to describe their practice of owning their workforce. They called it their peculiar institution, a euphemism.

A nice way of saying that things were done a little differently in their part of the world. Judicial override is, I think, a very good example. example of another Alabama peculiarity. And if you are at all curious about how this particular peculiarity works, I would direct you to the discussion that took place on April 17, 24, in a hearing room at the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to welcome you to the House Judiciary Committee. We're glad to have each and every one of you here with us today.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. All right. Mr. England, you want to talk about 27? Absolutely. Representative England is Chris England, that rarest of species in Alabama, a Democrat, represents Tuscaloosa. He was the co-sponsor of the legislation back in 2017 that ended judicial override. Now, he wants to make an amendment to that law. House Bill 27. What this bill does or seeks to do is to,

make that application retroactive, so that I believe 33 individuals that are currently sitting on death row as a result of override could be resentenced. Representative England says we've all finally agreed that judicial override violates the constitutional right to a jury trial in death Bentley cases. So we should go back and restore the jury's decision in the case of all those people who are only on death row because it took us 40 years to realize that back in 1975, we made a big mistake. Mr. England, I hear what you're saying, and I understand that an individual tried today would be subject to a different set of laws, and I've got you, but the individuals that were tried

part of the time we changed the law were subject to those laws that were in effect at that time, and the law that was in effect at that time allowed judicial override, and these judges in their discretion overrode. Then comes this priceless bit of nonsense. squarely, it's very difficult for me to second yes or, in effect, override that which the judge overwrote. At this, there are lots of nods up and down the committee. This is the

Alabama peculiarity. I have southern friends who get mad correctly at the way northerners always bring up slavery or get all worked up because people drive around with Confederate flags. But come on. This isn't a really. random thing. This is a characteristic. There is something in the psyche of places like Alabama that really, really, really doesn't want to address the consequences of past moral failures. All right. Is there a motion to give this bill a favorable report? Thank you. And a second. Okay. I think we've had plenty of discussion. You asked for a roll call. Go ahead, Brandy. Maybe you see where this is going. They voted down. There will be no overriding of the

override. It seems really clear to me that John Forrest Parker didn't kill Elizabeth Senate. He was back home in Florence when she received the stab wounds that killed her. He should never been convicted of murder, but he was. And if he was going to be convicted, he should have served out the sentence given to him by a jury of his peers, life without parole, but he didn't. And once he was on death row, Alabama should have ended the practice that robbed him. him of a just result, but they didn't get around to it for over 40 years, and even then, they couldn't bring themselves to override the override. John Forrest Parker never stood a chance.

Next time on the Alabama murders. This is how lethal injection actually kills you. It kills you by burning your lungs up. So the last thing that, you know, you may know is that you're unfired from the inside and the blood is filling up your lungs as you die. Is this too graphic? Look, if you come back here and you start coming and these guys ask you to go all the way with them, got to be willing to go. And I said, what's all the way? He said, you know, if they're

executions, if they ask you to be with them, you need, you can't, you need to be willing to go. And if you're not, just don't come. Revisionous history is produced by Ben Nadaf Haferi, Lucy Sullivan, and Nina Bird Lawrence. Additional reporting by Ben Nadafafi and Lee Hedgespeth. Our editor is Karen Shikurgy, Fact-checking by Kate Furby. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Engineering by Nina Bird-Laurence, production support from Luke LeMond.

Original scoring by Luis Guerra with Paul Brannard and Jimmy Bod. Sound design and additional music by Jake Gorski. I'm Malcolm Gladham. Malcolm Gladwell here. I'm excited to share that Revisionist History is a Signal Awards finalist in two categories. The Signal Awards recognize the top podcasts that define culture. Our episode, The Joe Rogan Intervention, is up for Best Conversation Starter, and our episode

Running Hot is up for Best Writing. We're thrilled to be nominated, and from now until October 9th, you can help us win by voting for us. Vote at Vote.orghumelward.com. That's vote. dot signal, S-I-G-N-A-Word.com. We're thankful for your support.

This is an I-Hart podcast.