Gov. Kay Ivey schedules November execution for Michael Taylor

Gov. Kay Ivey set a November execution date for a death row inmate convicted of murdering a Gadsden couple in 1991.

Michael Shannon Taylor, 54, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Nov. 5 for his role in the murders of Ivan and Lucille Moore. It is one of two executions scheduled in the last quarter of the year, and could be the state’s third in 2026 if both are carried out.

According to court documents, Taylor, then 19, was absent without leave from the Navy when he solicited a ride home from the Moores, whom he knew.

Taylor asked to use the Moores’ telephone while inside. According to documents, Taylor beat the couple to death while in the house.

Taylor was convicted of two counts of capital murder for the deaths of the Moores and another capital count because he was responsible for the deaths of two people during one incident. The jury unanimously recommended he be sentenced to death.

Through Monday, Ivey had scheduled executions for four people during the year, but only one had been carried out. Jeremy Williams was executed on Aug. 13 after he was convicted of capital murder for the rape and kidnapping of a five-year old girl in Russell County in 2021.

Ivey in February scheduled the execution of Charles “Sonny” Burton, who was sentenced to death for being present at an AutoZone store robbery in Talladega in 1991 where Doug Battle, a customer at the store, was murdered. Burton did not pull the trigger and was not in the store when Battle was killed.

But days before Burton’s execution, Ivey commuted his sentence to life in prison, citing the fact Derrick DeBruce, who had killed Battle, had his sentence commuted to life in prison.

Ivey later set a nitrogen gas execution for Jeffrey Lee, convicted of killing two people during an Orrville pawn shop robbery in 1998. Lee successfully challenged Alabama’s nitrogen gas protocol. A federal court has put the protocol under a permanent injunction.

Lee’s execution is scheduled for September and has been changed to lethal injection. Lee’s attorneys have unsuccessfully argued that a 2018 settlement of an earlier lawsuit bars the state from executing him by lethal injection.