Alabama plans to conduct 2nd execution of the year

The state plans to execute James Osgood on Thursday for his role in the 2010 murder of Tracy Brown.

A Chilton County jury convicted Osgood, 55, on two counts of capital murder in 2014. According to court documents, Osgood and his girlfriend at the time, Tonya Van Dyke, accompanied Brown to her home where the two eventually sexually assaulted and murdered her.

Van Dyke was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for her role in Brown’s death.

The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals remanded the case back to the trial court in 2016 after ruling that the judge at the trial made an error when giving instructions to the jury.

As the trial court was set to begin with jury selection however, Osgood waived empaneling the jury, saying he believes in “an eye for an eye,” and the circuit court once again imposed the death penalty.

Gov. Kay Ivey announced in a news release published in March that she had scheduled Osgood’s execution for this week after the Alabama Supreme Court granted a motion filed by the Alabama Attorney General’s Office in February to have Osgood put to death.

Osgood will be the second person executed by Alabama this year and the first by lethal injection for 2025. The state put Demetrius Frazier to death in February using nitrogen gas for the rape and murder of Paulin Brown in 1991.

Ivey commuted the death sentence for Robin “Rocky” Myers earlier in February because she was “not so convinced of his guilt as to approve his execution.”