08 April 2026 :

August 8, 2024 - Alabama. Cory Maples resentenced to LWOP

Maples, now 50, White, was sentenced to death in 1997 for the July 7, 1995 slayings of his 2 friends Stacy Terry and Barry Robinson.

Although he confessed, his trial lawyers presented almost no mitigating evidence. His appeals collapsed when his pro bono attorneys left their law firm without notifying the court, causing him to miss a critical deadline — a failure the U.S. Supreme Court later recognized as not his fault.

After the Supreme Court reopened his appeals in 2012 (Maples v. Thomas, 565 U.S. 266 (2012)), it took another decade before a federal court ordered a new penalty phase.

On January 27, 2022 (see HoC) Federal Judge Karon O. Bowdre tossed out the death sentence for Maples, ruling that his lawyers were ineffective during the 1997 sentencing phase of his trial.

In May 2024, a new jury voted 9–3 to spare his life, replacing the death sentence with life without parole, and on August 8, 2024 Judge Charles Elliott formally upheld the jury’s LWOP recommendation

https://www.youtube.com/c/WZDXNewsFOX54
https://www.lw.com/en/global-citizenship/pro-bono-and-community-service/saving-life-of-capital-defendant-cory-maples