Doyle Lee Hamm
Part of me already feels bad for how this blog is going to go. I believe that people and their memory should be remembered. Now, do not confuse that with believing that I go with the “code” of not speaking bad about the dead. I believe in remembering people for who they really were, good or bad. I also feel that a majority of murder victims should especially be remembered since their lives were cut short by someone in violence.
So often murder victims and their memories are “lost” when it comes to trials and appeals and all that comes with the media sensations. In this case the victim, Patrick Cunningham, will continually get lost in the chaos and I already know that I will contribute to that here. But, in order to tell the story of what happened to Patrick you also must talk about his killer, Doyle Lee Hamm. And, when you talk about Doyle Hamm you have to talk about what has happened to him since he murdered Patrick Cunningham. There can be no argument that what happened to Patrick Cunningham was unjust. When it comes to Hamm, I am sure there will be different opinions.
On January 24, 1987 Patrick Cunningham was working as the night clerk at a motel in Cullman Alabama. Doyle Lee Hamm had been on what was called “a crime spree.” Whether he was alone until he met up with Cunningham late that night or not was not completely clear to me. It was said that he had committed a robbery in Mississippi earlier that day in which he had taken a .38 caliber pistol. Three hundred and fifty dollars was taken from the motel register and an additional sixty dollars had been taken out of Patrick's wallet. Patrick was shot twice in the temple with the .38 caliber. Doyle Hamm was arrested the following day and charged with Patrick's murder.
This is a case in which so many other things have occurred over the years that may seem more important than the murder of Patrick Cunningham, or even the trial of Doyle Hamm that to find information at all, let alone accurate information, takes quite a bit of digging and to be fair I am unsure if I dug enough, or if there is such a thing. I found a reference that stated “two individuals claiming to be witnesses to the crime initially identified Hamm as the gunman during the robbery” in which Patrick Cunningham was murdered. They later recanted and both men, although I never found them to be identified, were later charged as co-defendants in the case. In turn they both took deals and became witnesses for the prosecution. It is unclear what they, or basically anyone else at Hamm's trial had to say. After deliberating for less than an hour Hamm was convicted on December 1, 1987. The jury then sat for the penalty phase and again, after less than an hour of deliberations they returned and recommended that Doyle Lee Hamm be sentenced to death.
As is the case in almost all cases in which someone has been sentenced to death, the following decades are full of appeals, Hamm's case was no different. A lot of his appeals centered on ineffective counsel. We hear this claim over and over in cases, to the point that it is such a standby argument that it is often just simply ignored. The problem with that is from time to time that argument is true. It is not completely clear what the defense attorney presented during the trial but it was said during the penalty phase they spent less than twenty minutes presenting mitigating evidence. This basically means that his attorney did little to nothing to fight against his client receiving the death penalty. Some could try to argue that maybe there was not any evidence to present, and I am sure that may be the case in some cases, but not this one.
There were records available that indicated Hamm may have had brain damage as well as education records about his intellectual abilities. The defense had access to this information, but did not present any of it. There was apparently evidence that Hamm had been born with fetal alcohol syndrome. His sister has been quoted as saying that their childhood home was “constant hell all of the time.” Doyle was the tenth of twelve children and his sister stated her father would tell the children, “If you don't go out and steal, then you're not a Hamm.” Doyle had several arrests over the years for robbery, burglary and assault. It was reported that in the fifth grade Doyle read at a first grade level. He dropped out of school in the ninth grade and began abusing drugs and alcohol.
While his prior arrests would have been aggravating evidence, the things about his childhood and other things would have “explained” some things. While in the end mitigating circumstances are basically things to allow a jury to “consider” when they are considering a recommendation for a sentence, that can be all speculation. Part of the problem in this case is the jury was not told of these things so they could not have made an informed decision.
The bigger issue of what the jury did not hear has more to do with Hamm's intellectual abilities. Now, first let me be clear, it was not until 2002 that the United States Supreme Court ruled that people with intellectual disabilities could not be executed. It was determined that to “qualify” a person's IQ had to be less than between 70 and 75. There was apparently evidence that Hamm's IQ was around 66. This is where things get a little tricky. First, as I mentioned this was not presented in his trial despite there being evidence available to the defense. Secondly, considering his trial was in 1987 his IQ would have not legally prevented him from receiving the death penalty. But the third issue is seemingly the most important. When someone files an appeal with the courts, they are only allowed to argue things that were presented in court or that were UNKNOWN to the defense. Of course there is the issue of ineffective counsel but the court has to rule that is a legitimate argument. Since the issue of Hamm's intellect was not brought up at trial unless the courts found his defense attorney was “ineffective” and they know that this was something that was known at the time of the trial it becomes a non-issue in appeals.
In June of 1999 Hamm was granted a hearing about the ineffectiveness of his counsel in his 1987 trial. Nothing seemed to really happen other than the fact that the judge, against Hamm and his current counsel's objections, appointed new counsel. At the time Hamm was being represented pro-bono (for free) by a law professor, Bernard Harcourt. The new attorney knew nothing about about the case and only called one witness. In fact there were psychologists prepared to testify about Hamm having brain damage and the new attorney did not call them.
On Friday December 3, 1999 the Alabama Attorney General's office submitted what was called a “Proposed Memorandum Order” to the judge. It was said to be nearly ninety pages long. Now, I am going to be fair in saying that a) I am unsure exactly what this “order” was about and b) what it actually said. Apparently however it would change nothing about Hamm's case in the legal sense however. The following Monday the judge, who had presided at his trial, entered into the record his ruling, or so he would claimed. It would be said that not only was it unusual that there had been less than one business day since the AG had submitted their proposal that he had ruled, but that he literally put into the court record the original filing by the AG's office. In fact, it was said that he never even edited it to removed the word “proposed.” It was this action that caused a group of former judges and members of the state bar association presidents to petition the United States Supreme Court on Hamm's behalf. But still, nothing happened. In 2015 the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals criticized the judge for the 1999 order but it seems it did not go further than that.
Then, in February of 2014 Hamm was diagnosed with lymphatic and cranial cancer. This caused him to develop several tumors and lesions on his body. He was given radiation therapy but it did not completely eliminate the cancer. Between the cancer, the treatment and his previous drug use early in life many of Hamm's veins were inadequate to say the least. By late 2017 he had “inflamed lymph nodes” in his neck chest and abdomen. He even had a cancerous lesion on his cheek that was “eating through bone and tissue.” He was scheduled to have the tumor removed but the day it was scheduled, December 13, 2017 the surgery was canceled when the Alabama Supreme Court handed down Hamm's death warrant. It was thought there was no reason to do the surgery when his death would occur in a few months.
Bernard Harcourt was once again representing Hamm and he had petitioned everyone he could throughout 2017 saying that Hamm's veins were not usable and that to attempt execution by lethal injection would amount to “cruel and unusual punishment.” It was even said that Harcourt himself had even recommended an alternative method of execution. All of this was for the most part ignored and denied.
On December 3, 2017 Hamm's execution was set for February 22, 2018. On January 31st a stay of execution was ordered when a judge ordered that the defense had shown that due to his medical issues there was a highly likelihood that he would “suffer irreparable injury if the execution were to go forward.” On February 6th an independent medical exam was ordered. Prosecutors appealed this and the stay of execution. On February 13th the stay was vacated but the order for the medical exam was ordered to continue. The doctor who performed the exam stated that while veins in his upper body, including his arms and hands were unusable the veins in his legs and feet were suitable. The day before the scheduled execution the group of former judges and Bar Association members urged the governor to stop the execution but again it fell on deaf ears.
On February 22nd Hamm was led into the death chamber when all appeals had failed. For more than two hours a doctor and an accompanying nurse repeatedly stuck him in his legs trying to find a suitable vein to administer the lethal injection “fluids.” It was said that a second doctor, although there was speculation that this person may or may not have had proper credentials, came into the room and began to looking for a vein in Hamm's groin area. After repeated attempts, and a lot of blood, and hearing the “doctor” talk about moving to Hamm's feet, it was said that a prison official came into the room and ordered the doctor to “get out” and the execution was aborted.
An examination was conducted the following day where there was EXTREME bruising on Hamm's legs (I saw the pictures) and in his groin area. It was said that there was blood in his urine for a few days following the attempt indicating that his bladder was punctured. After hearing the description of what had occurred during the attempt and hearing that there was an extreme amount of blood to the point that the pad underneath him had to be changed, the doctor also suspected that his femoral artery had also been punctured. Hamm would later say that it was so painful that he himself wished for death to come.
That all being said I was amazed when I heard that a man named Jeff Dunn, who at the time was the Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections told reporters after the attempt, “I wouldn't necessarily characterize what we had tonight as a problem” and claimed it was only stopped because they had “ran out of time” because the death warrant was going to expire.
A lawsuit was filed by Hamm and his attorney's. Apparently the filing asked for monetary damages due to the pain inflicted during the botched attempt. Alabama very quickly settled the suit the month following the attempt. Exactly what was agreed upon was said to be confidential but it was said that Hamm's monetary request was dropped and the state agreed to not make another execution attempt and instead gave Hamm a life without parole sentence. As of September 2021 Hamm is still alive in prison. I was not able to determine the status of his cancer or his treatments.
I know there are some that disagree with a lot of things that were done FOR Hamm during his time on death row, and even those who would have little sympathy for what he went through during the execution attempt. There really is a fine line when it comes to this. First, I am sure there are those who disagreed that medical treatment was given to someone who was sentenced to die. I can see and appreciate this point. But, one has to remember that up until the time someone is actually executed and they still have appeals within the courts their death is not certain through the state. Also, and I am not saying that this is the case with Hamm, but there have been many, many cases in which not only have we seen new evidence presented that can change the outcome of a verdict and require a new trial, but there have been several to be proven innocent while on death row. If Hamm had not been given medical treatment for his cancer and had been simply left to die and it was later discovered that he had been innocent or that the death penalty was not appropriate or Constitutional, at least in his case, a man would have died “for no reason.”
Then there is the issue of the botched execution itself. In my opinion it seemed that Alabama was so hell bent on executing Hamm that they totally dismissed and ignored all of the signs that this was not going to go well. As I stated before even his attorney suggested other alternative ways of execution that would not have involved “searching” for a vein to prevent what happened. Maybe “we” collectively are all so jaded in the process that involves appeals in death cases that we do not take any issues seriously. I agree that attorney's will often throw “everything, including the kitchen sink” at the courts to prevent an execution but in this case the things that were being argued, first by his own attorney, and later I would argue by the judge who issued the stay of execution in January of 2018, were valid. And yet the state of Alabama, and courts seemed to ignore them. Had the state stepped back objectively and looked at the situation they may have been able to see that finding an alternative to lethal injection or not fighting the stay of execution until, or if, the situation changed, they could have saved themselves the “embarrassment.”
While I have repeatedly stated I feel as if I am neither pro or anti-death penalty it is my opinion that you can be pro-death penalty all you want but when something like this occurs it damages your cause. While some may not believe in “cruel and unusual punishment” when it comes to those who have committed murder or particularly heinous crimes the courts have disagreed.
As I stated in the beginning, I knew that Patrick Cunningham would get lost in this story. So, I want to take this last moment to remind everyone that despite everything that has occurred in this case Patrick Cunningham was an innocent victim who lost his life at the hands of Doyle Lee Hamm.
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