Moreese Bickham

Moreese Bickham, born June 6, 1917, is the oldest living American whose death penalty conviction was vacated or modified by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Furman v. Georgia. The 1972 Furman decision abolished the death penalty in certain circumstances.^[1]

Legal history

Trial and death sentence

Born in 1917, the grandson of slaves, Moreese Bickham lived most of his life in Mississippi and Louisiana. He served in the United States Navy in World War II, stationed at Pearl Harbor.

In 1958, he lived in Mandeville, Louisiana, a town north of New Orleans. According to trial transcripts, at around 11 pm on the evening of July 12, 1958, Bickham had an argument with two sheriff's deputies in a bar called "Buck's Place" in Mandeville. At approximately 11 PM the deputies Gus Gill, 68, and Jake Galloway, 74, drove Bickham's girlfriend home. The deputies wore street clothes, and many in the community reported that they believed the two deputies were associated with the Ku Klux Klan, something not unusual for law enforcement personnel in a small rural town in Louisiana.

Later that night, the two officers arrived at Mr. Bickham's home on Villerey Street in Mandeville. The deputies approached Mr. Bickham's front door, and fired at Mr. Bickham, striking him in the stomach. Mr. Bickham returned fire with a shotgun. Mr. Bickham was arrested several hours at Baton Rouge Hospital. He was quickly convicted of two counts of first degree murder (premeditated homicide) and sentenced to death.

For fourteen years, Mr. Bickham avoided execution, winning seven stays of execution. He lived on death row in the Angola State Penitentiary, in solitary confinement 23 hours per day.

Commutation to life without parole, after Furman v. Georgia

In 1972, after the U.S. Supreme Court determined that death sentences applied in certain ways were unconstitutional, the State of Louisiana converted Bickham's sentence to life without parole. Mr. Bickham was at that time released into the general prison population.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he worked in a variety of capacities at Angola. He assisted in the visitors' center, maintained a garden in the prison cemetery, learned leather-making, and he became ordained as a minister in the Methodist faith. In 1989, independent radio documentarian David Isay interviewed Mr. Bickham in a documentary on long-timers at Angola, entitled "Tossing Away the Keys".^[2]

Negotiations, sentence reduction and release

Five years later, in 1994, New York corporate attorney Michael Alcamo accepted Bickham's case pro bono. Working with 35 year-old trial transcripts, Alcamo investigated the circumstances of the conviction, and presented evidence to Louisiana authorities that Bickham's arrest, conviction and sentence had been improper.

Alcamo contended that it was apparent from the deputies own statements that, at Buck's Place at 11:00 pm, Bickham had broken no law; otherwise the deputies would have arrested Bickham at that time. Instead, the deputies arrested Florence Spencer. Alcamo thus contended that there was no reasonable basis for Galloway and Gill to have gone to Bickham's home at 2 am, and that it could be inferred that the two men meant to do harm to Bickham. Alcamo argued that these circumstances indicated that Bickham should have been charged with the lesser offense of manslaughter, which carried a maximum term of 25 years, or have been exculpated on principles of self-defense.

As a secondary position, Alcamo sought a commutation of Bickham's sentence from life without parole to 75 years.

As part of the legal strategy, the attorney organized a national letter-writing campaign. Because local sentiment made a full pardon out of the question, Alcamo took the position that Bickham's sentence should be commuted, or reduced, to a specific term of 75 years. This would make it possible to seek a parole date or a specific release date based on Louisiana's "good time statute," which allows a reduction in sentence in cases of good behavior.

Through 1994, working from a corporate law office in Manhattan, Alcamo focused public attention on the case, arranging radio programming on public radio stations in New York City and Chicago. Finally, in January 1995, Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards granted the request for a sentence reduction to 75 years.

Alcamo then immediately requested a hearing for a release on parole, for which an inmate is eligible after having served a third of his sentence. However, despite the passage of 37 years, the parole hearing drew massive news coverage and local protests. In April 1995, after a contentious hearing at the Louisiana State Parole Board, Bickham's request for parole was denied.

Alcamo then negotiated with the prison warden, Burl Cain, to obtain and review Bickham's prison record. Alcamo argued that Bickham's prison record was sufficiently exemplary that under the State of Louisiana's "Good Time Statute", Bickham could be eligible for a sentence reduction of one day for each day served with good behavior.

After a review of the prison record, Angola's warden, Burl Cain, was willing to certify as to Bickham's good behavior during his 37 years of incarceration. Alcamo petitioned the State under the good-time statute that Bickham should be releasable as a free man after serving a term of 37.5 years. Alcamo argued that once the State Penitentiary staff had certified Bickham's prison record, the inmate's release would be non-discretionary.

The Louisiana Department of Corrections agreed with the analysis. At 12:01 a.m. on January 10, 1996, Alcamo was accompanied by journalist David Isay, and escorted Bickham from the prison. Bickham was a free man, not subject to parole.

Fulfilling a promise he had made on Bickham's behalf to the Louisiana Department of Corrections, Alcamo then drove with Isay and Bickham through the night across the state; then out of Louisiana into Mississippi.

It has been mistakenly reported in news sources and student essays that Bickham's release came about through an analysis of DNA evidence.

Influence

Now in his 90s, Bickham resides in Oregon and is an active participant in the movement to abolish capital punishment in the United States. David Isay is the creator of StoryCorps, a national enterprise to record oral histories. Alcamo is an investment banker in New York.

In 2001, Edwin Edwards, the Louisiana Governor who commuted Bickham's sentence, was convicted of racketeering and sentenced to ten years in federal prison. In 2010, Moreese Bickham wrote to President Barack Obama to ask the President to release Mr. Edwards a year early, but the request was not granted.

Mr. Bickham is the subject of two contemporary songs: "Half a Life Away," by Stiff Little Fingers, a moving ballad that misstates certain facts of Mr. Bickham's case^[3] and "Rosebush Inside" by Sean Hayes (musician).^[4]

Mr. Bickham's case has been chronicled in numerous national media, including the The New York Times,^[5] the New York Daily News^[6] and the Seattle Times.^[7]

Mr. Bickham's story was also featured on NPR's Snap Judgment with Glen Washington in show #329 entitled "Found." In the radio feature, as a follow up to his profile in StoryCorps, and the retelling of his story by Sean Hayes in his song Rosebush Inside, Hayes tells of meeting Moreese Bickham and his family in person at a live performance.^[8]

Moreese Bickham was quoted by Dan Gilbert as saying upon release “I don’t have one minute’s regret. It was a glorious experience.”^[5] Gilbert used Bickham's quote as evidence that that happiness is achievable in any condition.^[9]

References