Alford's Argument Against The Death Penalty

One night in the 1970’s, Henry Alford visited a bar that he usually attends, to see a prostitute. According to serval reports, upon his arrival at the bar, Alford got into a fist fight with another gentleman. After the fist fight, a witness claimed to see Alford retrieve his gun from his house and profess to want to kill a man. Shortly after, the same witness claims to have heard Alford confess to have committed the crime. Following his arrest, he was appointed a fairly young lawyer. This young man advised him that in the state of North Carolina, the death penalty is legal for felonies such as murder when the accused doesn't plea guilty and is later found to have committed the crime by the jury. Also, being that he committed the crime during the rise or the civil rights movement, the odds concerning this particular case were definitely not in his favor. So, his lawyer advised him to plea guilty in hope that he wouldn't be victim of the death penalty. Although Alford’s lawyer advised him to plea guilty, the final decision was left in Alford’s hands. After considering the advise his lawyer gave him, Alford agreed to plea guilty. However during trail she he took the stand, he confessed that the only reason he agreed to plea guilty was because he was afraid of being sentenced to death penalty. He confessed to the judge that he's innocent and that the evidence was stacked against him so he felt as though he had no choice but to agree to the guilty plea on the chard of second degree murder. On the contrary, he also mentioned that his lawyer clearly explained to him the difference between first and second degree murder and his other options if he decided …show more content…
He didn't want to spend the rest of his life incarcerated. In the Court Of Appeals, Alford claimed that his plea was a violation of his constitutional rights because he involuntary accepted the guilty plea as a result of his fear of receiving the death