20 October 2017 :
Torrey McNabb, 40, Black, was executed.
He raised his right arm and grimaced about 20 minutes before he was declared dead, just after a corrections officer performed the second round of consciousness checks.
McNabb's family members and attorneys audibly expressed concern that he was not yet unconscious at that point. Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn addressed the concerns about the late movements by McNabb during a press conference immediately following his execution. "Yes, I’m confident he was more than unconscious at that point. I’ve witnessed several of these executions and involuntary movements are not uncommon," Dunn said. "We did perform two consciousness checks ... We don't talk specifically about the protocol. But as I said we err on the side of safety and we want to be sure we follow the protocol as it is written." McNabb has spent the last 18 years on death row, after being convicted of fatally shooting Montgomery Police Officer Anderson Gordon on September 24, 1997.
McNabb was convicted on two capital murder counts — one for killing Gordon while he was on duty, and one for killing him as Gordon sat in his patrol car. McNabb also was found guilty of two additional counts of attempted murder. At his trial in January 1999, McNabb admitted that he shot and killed Officer Gordon and that he had fired at Sanford Sharpe, a bail bondsman, and Officer William M. Perkins. McNabb asserted that he was acting in self-defense, and that he had ingested so much cocaine on the morning of the shootings that he was in a cocaine-induced state of paranoia that left him unaware of his actions. Court records show that the jury recommended the death sentence by a 10-2 vote. Sharpe testified that he was hired by All States Bonding Company to locate McNabb after McNabb had failed to appear for two court appearances relating to charges of receiving stolen property and possessing a controlled substance.
McNabb becomes the 3rd inmate to be put to death this year in Alabama, the 61st overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1983, the 21st prisoner put to death this year in the U.S., the 1,463rd person executed in the United States since 1976, and the 1,288th person executed by lethal injection.
