Opinion ID: 577016
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Alabama Murder Trial

Text: 11 Petitioner was released from federal custody on May 27, 1980 and transferred to a New Jersey state prison to serve a sentence for possession of a dangerous weapon and possession of cocaine. He was paroled in 1982 by the New Jersey authorities. On March 5, 1983 during an armed robbery of a pawnshop in Alabama, the robber ordered the store owner and his female employee to lie on the floor, and then shot them both in the back of the head. The owner died, but the employee survived and subsequently identified Nicks as the murderer. 12 After Nicks' arrest for this vicious crime, he was found incompetent by the Alabama Competency Review Board and committed for treatment. When later found competent to stand trial, he was convicted of murder committed during the commission of a felony. During the sentencing phase of the trial, the jury recommended by a 10 to 2 vote that Nicks be sentenced to death, finding no mitigating circumstances, and finding two aggravating circumstances: that the murder occurred during a robbery, and that he had committed a prior federal armed bank robbery that involved the use or threat of violence, the subject of this appeal. The Alabama court adopted the recommendation of the jury and imposed a sentence of death. 13 Nicks' conviction and sentence were affirmed by the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals and the Alabama Supreme Court. Nicks v. State, 521 So.2d 1018 (Ala.Crim.App.1987), aff'd, 521 So.2d 1035 (Ala.1988). The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari, 487 U.S. 1241, 108 S.Ct. 2916, 101 L.Ed.2d 948 (1988), and rehearing, 487 U.S. 1263, 109 S.Ct. 27, 101 L.Ed.2d 977 (1988). On January 17, 1989 in a petition for post-conviction relief under Alabama law, Nicks asserted 30 separate claims for relief from his sentence, including a claim that his 1974 federal bank robbery conviction should not have been used as an aggravating circumstance. That petition is being held in abeyance in Alabama pending the outcome of this appeal.