Families from Florence, Dothan, Tuscaloosa, Prattville and Countless Places In Between Line the Alabama Capitol Steps Honoring the Hundreds of Lives Lost in Alabama State Prisons

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By Eddie Burkhalter, Appleseed Researcher

Stephanie Lewis stood in front of the Alabama State Capitol steps with hundreds of others on Wednesday and pleaded for the system that allowed her husband to die to change. 

“It has to change. I know his life was not in vain,” Mrs. Lewis said of her husband’s January death at the Childersburg Work Release facility in Alpine. She’s still seeking answers from the Alabama Department of Corrections, but others inside the facility have said his death involved excessive force by officers. 

At least 202 people died inside Alabama prisons in 2025, which was nearly three times the national average. That was a drop from the 277 deaths in Alabama prisons in 2024, following another slight decline from the record high 327 in 2023.

On Ash Wednesday, Alabamians gathered on the Capitol Steps to remember those who died in state prison custody.

More than 1,500 Alabamians have died in state prison custody since Alabama’s elected officials were put on notice by the federal government in 2019 that state prisons were plagued by mismanagement, corruption, understaffing, nonexistent investigations, and violence, including homicides and sexual assaults.

On Wednesday, hundreds of family members harmed by these losses and advocates calling for change met outside the state Capitol to demand action. The Oscar-nominated documentary “The Alabama Solution” tells the plight of men inside the state’s deadly prisons fighting for change from inside. The film’s impact campaign “No More” helped organize Wednesday’s gathering. 

“I’m here today to seek justice for my son, who they murdered,” Sandy Ray, from Uniontown, told those gathered on Wednesday. Her son, Steven Davis, was beaten to death by officers in 2019. “And for all of you.” 

A woman grieves at a vigil for the 1,500 lives lost in Alabama prisons

The film documented the ADOC’s response to Mr. Davis’s beating death, which involved a $250,000 settlement paid to Ms. Ray, yet the officer involved remains on the state payroll and has been promoted to lieutenant.

Terry Williams spoke to Appleseed by phone prior to Wednesday’s vigil. His 22-year-old son, Daniel Terry Williams, was likely smothered to death in November 2023, according to the state’s chief medical examiner, and there was evidence on his body that corroborate what witnesses have said was his kidnapping and torture over a period of several days inside Staton Correctional Facility. He died the day he was set to be released from prison.

“It hurts a lot, knowing what he had to go through, and I couldn’t help him,” Mr. Williams said. 

Despite witnesses who saw Daniel Williams being held against his will in a secure prison staffed with officers, and despite clear medical evidence pointing to homicide and a suspect identified, that suspect has not been charged in Mr. Williams’s death. To date, no one has been criminally charged in connection with his death, which made headlines across the country and altered Alabama lawmakers that nothing they or the Administration had done in the four years since the DOJ report was released had sufficiently addressed deadly prison violence. 

Daniel Terry Williams, 22, was likely smothered to death on November 7, 2022 inside Staton Correctional Facility.

Appleseed’s executive director, Carla Crowder, addressed the Legislature’s Joint Prison Oversight Committee in a December 2023 meeting and presented documentation of ADOC failures that contributed to the death, part of a pattern of failures that has resulted in assaults, rapes, and killings of incarcerated individuals, many of whom were sent to prison for drug treatment and rehabililation.  “The 38-year-old suspect in this kidnapping, rape and torture was involved in nine instances of sex assault, rape, and stabbing since 2017 in ADOC while incarcerated. … There is no documentation that he was placed in segregation for any of these assaults. There was no disciplinary action by ADOC,” she said.

Daniel Willaims’ father questions how prison staff would allow such a thing to happen, and said he is seeking justice that so far hasn’t been offered to his family. “Put them in a single cell for the rest of their lives. I want them to sit there and think about what they did,” Mr. Williams said. 

Kelly Ballentine with her grandson, Wayland, drove all the way from Florence to attend the vigil.

Tim Mathis lost his son to an overdose inside Elmore Correctional Facility on June 4, 2024, minutes after talking to his father by phone. Mr. Mathis, from Dothan, frequently appears before lawmakers demanding accountability and reform.

Overdose deaths, and especially those deaths known or suspected of being caused by fentanyl, have soared in the state’s prisons. The overdose mortality rate in Alabama’s prisons in 2023 of 435 per 100,000 people was 20 times the national rate across state prisons.

What his son’s autopsy report shows is that the state’s medical examiner believes Chase died of accidental “mixed Drug toxicity (fentanyl and fluorofentanyl).” Fluorofentanyl is a synthetic form of fentanyl first produced in the 1960s.

“There’s probably been someone who’s died in the system while we’ve been standing here,” Mr. Mathis said to those assembled outside the Capitol.

Dothan father, Tim Mathis, speaks about his son, Chase Mathis, who entered prison in a wheelchair and never came home. Photo by Bernard Troncale

Asked by Appleseed whether he believes some of Alabama’s decision-makers in Montgomery aren’t aware of the prison crisis, Mr. Mathis explained that he thinks it might be more complicated than that.  “Some of them just don’t know. Some of them are just ignorant to it, and then again, maybe some of them don’t want to know,” he said. 

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Chronicle of Philanthropy calls Appleseed “one of the South’s most unexpectedly effective advocacy groups.”

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Alabama Appleseed has been featured in the prestigious Chronicle of Philanthropy!

Here’s what they’re saying:

“In a state dominated by a Republican supermajority and long resistant to criminal-justice reform, Alabama Appleseed has become one of the South’s most unexpectedly effective advocacy groups.”

The article traces Appleseed’s leap into legal and reentry services, beginning with the case of Alvin Kennard, our first client freed from a life without parole sentence.

“When Carla Crowder walked into a Jefferson County courtroom in August 2019, she didn’t expect to change the direction of her small nonprofit, the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice. She was there for one man: 58-year-old Alvin Kennard, who had spent 36 years behind bars for stealing $50.75 from a bakery in 1983 at age 22. His three earlier felonies — burglaries he committed at age 18 — meant he was sentenced under Alabama’s notoriously harsh “three-strikes” law, which mandates life without parole even for a low-level offense in which no one is physically harmed.

Crowder’s group hadn’t taken on individual clients before. The tiny policy and advocacy shop she had joined just months earlier was built to study and reform the state’s criminal-justice system, often through data-driven reports. But when a judge asked her to represent Kennard, she agreed — and when he was released, the story ricocheted nationally. That moment reshaped the organization’s sense of what was possible.”

We are so grateful for our funding partners at the National Football League who invested in this work early on, and now more than 30 Alabamians are freed from draconian sentences.

A group of Appleseed’s clients, all of whom served decades in life sentences without parole in Alabama prisons, enjoy a day in a Birmingham park following a birthday celebration for John Coleman. From left are Larry Garrett, Ronald McKeithen, Robert Cheeks, Lee Davis, John Coleman, and Willie Ingram. Photo by Bernard Troncale

The story goes on:

“Crowder used the funds to hire a newly minted lawyer, and together they began combing through spreadsheets and legal files. Their next case was Ronald McKeithen, who had served 37 years for a robbery he committed at age 21. After his release, he joined Appleseed’s staff and remains a core part of its re-entry team.

As more people were freed, more letters poured in from others seeking help. “Nobody else was doing these kinds of cases anymore,” Crowder said. “By taking individual cases, we’re both filling such a huge gap in legal services and learning about the brokenness of the system from their stories.”

Read the full story: How Unlikely Allies Help One Small Nonprofit Get Results in a Deep Red State

 

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SB254, a bill to bring fairness to parole revocations, filed in the Alabama Senate

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An Appleseed-supported bill that would bring more fairness to the parole revocation process and help prevent unnecessary revocations that do not contribute to public safety has been filed in the Alabama Legislature.

SB254, sponsored by Sen. Sam Givhan, R-Huntsville, would give the parole board greater discretion when someone on parole is arrested for a minor offense or when they have committed technical violations. Current law mandates revocations in many of these kinds of cases. The rigidity of the existing statute has resulted in people with long histories of employment and compliance being returned to Alabama’s crowded and violent prisons unnecessarily. 

SB254 was developed after years of research and communication with incarcerated Alabamians. Appleseed shared some of these stories in our Taking a Life report, which documented people across the state who were living successful lives and meaningfully contributing to the workforce, then sent back to prison on a parole revocation despite having no new convictions.   

            This common sense bill:  

  • Ensures the parole board is able to consider all the facts when someone on parole has been charged with a new offense, but not yet convicted, to determine whether they are satisfied that the individual seems to have committed the offense.
  • Ensures people with certain underlying offenses who have been arrested for more serious crimes are still automatically revoked, but allows the board discretion when those same individuals are arrested on more minor charges or when they have committed a technical parole violation. 
  • If an individual’s parole has been revoked for a new charge and that charge is later dismissed or worked down to something more minor, the board may automatically reinstate parole or bring the individual back before them within 90 days for a review. 

Among the people impacted by this bill are Archie Hamlett and Vinson French, both men in their 50s, who were incarcerated under life sentences for nonviolent crimes, then eventually released on parole. They spent years working and contributing to their communities, then were arrested on new charges that never resulted in convictions..

Archie Hamlett

Mr. Hamlett now, following revocation

Archie Hamlett Truck

Archie Hamlett at his home in Hazel Green before his parole was revoked last year.

Mr. Hamlett, who is 53, is currently trying to manage his trucking company, Hamlett Logistics, from Easterling Correctional Facility. He was paroled from prison, where he served decades on a marijuana trafficking conviction, and was a successful business owner and homeowner. Last January, Madison County deputies pulled him over as he drove home on icy roads after suspecting he was driving under the influence. While he was detained on the side of the road, he requested to retrieve a urinal from his truck; Mr. Hamlett has a documented medical condition. The deputies declined that request, and he urinated beside his truck. He was charged with public lewdness, a misdemeanor that was later nolle prossed on a motion by the state, meaning they declined to prosecute the case, noting that he was already returning to prison through mandatory parole revocation. SB254 would have provided the parole board discretion to consider all of the circumstances involved in his arrest, including his medical condition, the minor nature of the public lewdness charge, the behavior that contributed to that charge, and any recommendations from his parole officer. When the charges were nolle prossed by the state, Archie’s revocation would have been revisited by the board.

Mr. French, who is 59, has not committed a new felony in 35 years. While at work in 2020, he was charged with theft because he was sitting in a truck near a trailer filled with stolen scaffolding. A Montgomery County District Court Judge quickly dismissed the charges for lack of probable cause and ordered him released. However, his parole had already been revoked and he was transported back to prison. For more on the frustrating chain of events that have left Mr. French languishing in prison as he nears age 60, please read our report, Taking a Life: With life sentences, the State of Alabama controls thousands of rehabilitated individuals long past the point of danger, until death. But why? 

 

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Another deadly year in Alabama prisons claims 202 lives

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By Eddie Burkhalter, Appleseed Researcher

More than six years after the State of Alabama was put on notice that its violent and dangerous prisons violate the United States Constitution, the death toll inside state prisons was nearly three times the national average.

At least 202 people died inside Alabama prisons in 2025, Alabama Appleseed discovered through a records request to the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC).  Alabama’s prisoner mortality rate in 2025 was 957 deaths per 100,000 people, compared with a national average across state prisons of 330 deaths per 100,000, according to the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics.

That was a drop from the 277 deaths in Alabama prisons in 2024, following another slight decline from the record high 327 in 2023. While the decline can be considered progress, the rate of deaths across Alabama prisons dramatically exceeds the death toll in other state prison systems, and continues to be high despite multiple commissions, committees, hearings, lawsuits, and investigative reports. 

Tim Mathis speaks before the Legislature’s Joint Prison Oversight Committee. Mr. Mathis is one of hundreds of Alabama parents whose children have died in state custody.

The extraordinary loss of life inside prisons run by the largest law enforcement agency in the state has left families devastated and searching for answers. Often families are notified of these deaths by a warden who shares little detail about how the person died. That’s in part because UAB Hospital terminated its longstanding agreement with ADOC to conduct autopsies and/or toxicology screens on suspected natural and overdose deaths on April 22, 2024.

Therefore, while we know how many people died, getting an official account for how they died is more difficult. A 2021 state law requires the department to publish a quarterly report containing statistical data on the number, manner, and cause of inmate deaths occurring in prisons “including the results of any autopsy provided to the department by a third party.” ADOC began including a section labeled “Final autopsy results” in those reports. However, without stating a reason, the department removed that section from the reports beginning with the last quarterly report in 2022, despite the reports still containing the phrase that “the final autopsy results reflect the opinion of the medical examiner conducting the autopsy of the final cause of death.” 

The lack of transparency surrounding these deaths is all the more alarming given ADOC and the state’s years-long legal battle over the unconstitutional treatment of incarcerated men. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division in 2019 released its first report detailing the out-of-control prisons for men in Alabama, The federal government in December 2020 sued the state and ADOC alleging widespread use of force, corruption, rampant drugs and contraband, and the inability of ADOC to keep men safe from sexual and physical violence and death.  

More than 1,500 Alabamians have died in state prison custody since Alabama’s elected officials were put on notice by the federal government that state prisons were plagued by mismanagement, corruption, understaffing, nonexistent investigations, and violence, including homicides and sexual assaults.

Alabama Appleseed’s own project to track and publish state prison deaths began in 2024 and the initial batch of data we have collected has been included in UCLA Law’s data. (Individual-level data on Alabama prison deaths in 2024 can be found by visiting UCLA Law’s Github site and navigating to the raw data for Alabama. The project will soon add Appleseed’s 2022 data to the site.)

Despite the lack of transparency surrounding the causes of death, through Appleseed’s own tracking of these deaths, from news accounts and a review of a list kept by a group of advocates, Appleseed believes at least seven people died as a result of homicides inside state prisons in 2025. That’s only one less than were killed in 2024. In 2023, the record high year of deaths, there were 14 homicides in Alabama prisons.  

Among those 2025 deaths were Michael Thomas Jones, 47, who died on February 6 after a previous assault at Limestone prison, and Cordel Ladon Battle, 30, died from a stabbing at Donaldson prison on Feb. 11. 

Montavius Banks, 31, died on June 6 after an assault at Limestone prison. Antwion Webb, 45,  died on Oct. 13 after an assault at Donaldson prison. Kendall Stone Kent, 25, died on Oct. 21 after being assaulted on Oct. 7 at Easterling prison. 

Mikheal Christopher Gilliam died on Oct. 30 following a stabbing at Elmore prison. Eric Dewayne Sanders died on Dec. 9 after being assaulted at Elmore prison. 

So far in 2026 there have been at least 12 deaths in Alabama prisons, according to the list kept by the group of advocates. Appleseed is working to confirm those deaths. 

 

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Saving Lives While Serving Life Without Parole

By Carla Crowder and Carl Green

Carl Green learned how to provide emergency medical care to his fellow prisoners after they were beaten, stabbed, and cut inside Donaldson prison. Sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for a series of fast food restaurant robberies, Carl served 36 years in prison. No one counted exactly how many lives he saved.

Mr. Green served 36 years in prison before being represented by Appleseed and released.

Carl never expected to be released from prison. Appleseed took on his case several years ago after learning about him from Ronald McKeithen, our Director of Second Chances, who has known Carl since they were teenagers in Birmingham. Both of them came from difficult, impoverished backgrounds and they met in the City Jail. Carl was from New York, where he dropped out of school and went to work to help support his family at age 13, first as a delivery boy for a deli, then as a restaurant bus boy. There were five children in his family and no father figure, so he was committed to helping his mother. 

Eventually the family made its way to Alabama. Carl fell into struggles with drugs and alcohol as a young man. By age 30, his felony convictions – none of which involved physical harm of another person – resulted in a mandatory sentence of life without parole. He spent all of it in Donaldson Correctional Facilities, one of the most violent prisons in Alabama. 

Carl Green and Appleseed Legal Director Scott Fuqua on release day in 2025.

Beginning in 1993, he began providing medical care to injured incarcerated people, learning from another incarcerated man. Carl estimates that he stitched up between 20 and 25 people with varying degrees of injuries over the years. “Most of the jobs I did was butterfly stitches,” he explained. 

Carl walked out of Donaldson prison for the last time in December, thanks to a decision by Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr not to oppose resentencing. Presiding Circuit Judge Michael Streety entered an order resentencing Carl Green to time served and finding: “This Court is confident that had petitioner been sentenced according to today’s sentencing standards the imposed sentence could have been dramatically shorter in time.” 

Since his release, Carl is frequently in our office, working with Appleseed’s reentry team to develop plans for moving forward with his life at age 65. “I see myself as an old man now and opportunities aren’t as available as when I was young,” he said recently. “I regret the crimes I committed. I wish I could tell my victims how I feel.” 

Carl Green, Ronald McKeithen, and Appleseed Executive Director, Carla Crowder, enjoy a walk in Birmingham’s Railroad Park.

We prod him into sharing stories of his medical work in prison, in part because these make-shift heroics seem nearly unbelievable in a cell block setting: bleach for disinfectant, paper clips for needles, guards who knew what he was up to and thanked him. Yet, they became commonplace. So we asked him to write about his efforts so others could know both how horrific the violence is inside our prisons and how generous and determined to help some of the people our state has thrown away have proven to be.  Here are a few of his stories in his own words:

Around 1996, the violence had begun to pick up. A drug deal had gone bad within the gang, a package was not delivered on time. So the middle man was beaten and stabbed several times. I was asked to fix him. He was my first patient. He had a busted eye, a busted lip, two stab wounds to the shoulder. Being that he was the first inmate I ever worked on, I only used alcohol pads and just patched up the holes in his shoulder. And gave him some ice for the swelling on his mouth and eye. The big part was negotiating to keep him from being killed. 

As the years passed, the gangs became more violent and injuries were more severe. I once had to work on an inmate who had beat another inmate out of $25.  He had underestimated the situation and found himself in a world of trouble. This inmate was being held in a cell by two inmates that were killers. He had been sliced in on the neck with a box blade, (similar to a utility knife) all of this for a little of nothing, I thought to myself.

When I entered the cell to examine him I found this man holding a towel to his neck scared to death, eyes full of tears with a towel wrapped around his neck soaked in blood. There was an inmate at the door and another standing behind him. I got a spray bottle of bleach and sprayed the wound which sent him through the roof, oh the pain. When he calmed down I looked at the laceration. Two inches, long, third-degree injury. Barely missed his jugular vein. It was horrible.

I told the inmate with the box blade I can’t fix it. He almost lost his mind. He said if I can’t fix it, he’s a dead man. So I said “Wait, wait let me take another look.” The guy was begging for his life. I said I can fix it. Salt to stop the bleeding, bleach for infection, surgical tape strips for the suture.

A few hours of work, and a madman wanted to bring me another victim while [I was] working [on] the first victim. I said if you do I’m out and you got lockup. He came to his senses. And I finished my job. The two never had another problem. I saw my work a few weeks later, and it seemed I never stopped stitching inmates.

The next inmate got robbed while selling alcohol. He was beaten, stabbed, cut, and skin popped. I had to get another prison doctor to help me. Further he was more experienced and had all the medical supplies I needed. A good friend of mine. We had to check and make sure his lungs weren’t punctured and make sure he was not bleeding internally.

Puncture wound to his back, chest, laceration to face, chest and back, pumpkin head, face swollen, eyes, lips. I cut surgical strips, you suture, I pinch suture, I patch, go. No bubbles in holes and he’s bleeding out. Good, we’ve got 20 minutes before count time. Need a clean up man.

We fixed this guy in 20 minutes. We used Pine Sol, bleach, salt, real needles, and surgical tape strips, pressured his chest by hand, discovered no air in or bubbles in his blood, in the chest or back, and all the puncture wounds were bleeding out which meant we could work on him and didn’t have to send him to the infirmary. That’s prison doctor talk.

The worst, worst wound: an ice pick or a knife pointy as an ice pick. Or a Bone Crusher, or a short dog.

A friend of mine got hit with a short dog in the neck. He had beat a guy out of some drugs earlier in the month. Well, the inmate he beat out of the drugs happened to be a friend of mine as well. I talked to the both of them prior to the stabbing. It was quashed, until the one who stole the drugs started feeling untouchable. Face fights, reckless eyeballing, and a sneaky grin, set the battle in motion. Three on one; the drugs weren’t worth the violent torture. Three maniacs exacting revenge for their stolen drugs. It took every bit of energy to peel them off of him, and just for good measure a couple of shots to the back and shoulder blade on the way out, with the short dog. Three-inch blade, three-inch handle. Usually made from short steel scissors.

The shot in the shoulder blade caused a blood clot, which caused blood to flow to his neck. There was a knot on his neck the size of a baseball. I told him he wouldn’t make it to the infirmary if he didn’t let me get the clot out of his neck. At first he refused, when asked to look at his neck in the mirror and he saw his neck he took a seat and let me work on him. He held his breath while I pressured his chest, after several attempts the blood flowed out the hole in his shoulder blade. A blood clot popped out as big as a quarter. He was soaked in blood and so was the cell.

I negotiated his safe return to his cell and that he be left alone. And to stop the bleeding I used salt which made him hit the ceiling. I fed him for two days. Also, the fact that he had fainted from the strain and the loss of so much blood. He moved to another unit before being fully healed.

These are some of the things that can be made into weapons in prison:

  1. Metal boxes- knives, hatchets, axes
  2. Kitchen oven grills- ice picks 
  3. Plexiglass windows- knives, can’t be detected by metal detectors
  4. Bed rails- Make knives that are considered bone crushers
  5. Toenail clippers- make box blade, similar to a utility knife, after being filed down
  6. Locks- put on the end of belt buckles or in socks, used as slings
  7. Batteries- multiple batteries and a sock used as a sling 
  8. Steel short scissors- broke apart used as a short dog, [for] close-in fights.

These are some of the things that can be made into materials for medical work:

  1. Paper clips large or small, used as suture needles
  2. Good for curving: metal wire from brooms or mops. Metal from the arms of eyeglasses, guitar string. 

And all of the above you only have to flatten one end and make a hole in it. Now you have a sewing needle. I cannot forget to mention smuggled needles from the laundry.

These are some of the things that can be used as infection preventions: 

  1.  Salt- stops bleeding and starts healing process, burns the wound, painful as hell
  2. Pine Sol
  3. Bleach
  4. Sea breeze

Mix any of these, healed overnight.

This is not nearly close to the medical help given. The most important part is being able to negotiate to bring about a peaceful solution to a violent situation. That’s the real reward. In all the years of my work I’ve never charged one inmate. But have accepted a gift or two for my diligence. 

Carl Green and Appleseed’s Ronald McKeithen celebrate Carl’s release. The two have known each other since they were teenagers.

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Alabama mother fights for better quality of life for son who returned from prison with severe brain injury

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By Eddie Burkhalter, Appleseed Researcher

William Thomas was found hanging inside his segregation cell at St. Clair Correctional Facility on Aug. 7, 2023. Although he lived, he’s still fighting to get his life back from the severe brain injury that has robbed him of his speech and mobility. 

Though William eventually was released from the hospital through a medical furlough and returned to his parents’ Huntsville home, he needs constant care and is unable to stand or fully communicate. His condition has thrust the Thomases into an ever-expanding community of families across Alabama with loved ones who emerged from state prison custody in previously unimaginable conditions: debilitating injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder, even coma. 

It was another incarcerated person, not prison staff, who called Tanisha Thomas, William’s mother, and told her that her son had been found hanging from a light fixture in his cell. He had requested to be placed in a segregation cell to be safe from the physical abuse he was suffering, and to get away from the drug addictions fueled by the narcotics inside the prison, his mother said. The family believes that his hanging was either the result of hallucinations he may have been experiencing due to drug withdrawals or someone else may have tried to kill him. 

William Thomas before incarceration

At the time, the family drove to UAB Hospital in Birmingham and eventually was able to visit with William, who had been placed in a medically-induced coma. He was hooked to a ventilator. The family received very little information about her son from hospital staff, who were limited in what they could say by prison officials, she said. 

“Palliative care came out to me a few days later and tried to convince me to just make him comfortable, that he’s not going to be the same person. It’s not going to be a good ending. Don’t let him suffer,  and all that, and my religious belief is the complete opposite,” Mrs. Thomas said. “I’m not the giver, nor the taker, of life, so I wasn’t going to make that decision.” 

As her son began to improve, he was eventually taken off of the ventilator and breathing on his own.  “He opened his eyes on command. I told him, ‘Son, if you hear me, let me know you hear me. Just open your eyes.’ He opened his eyes,” she said. 

Tanisha Thomas comforts her son, William Thomas, who suffered severe injuries after being found hanging in his cell at St. Clair prison.

About a month after his injury, the family got a call at their Huntsville home from the hospital asking what they wanted done with his belongings. It was a confusing call, then they learned William was being sent back to the prison system where he nearly died. “Unbelievable. It was unbelievable,” Mrs. Thomas said.

His condition deteriorated once back in St. Clair prison’s infirmary. They’d visit him every Saturday that visitations were held. “Every time we saw him, he was getting worse and worse. His arms were contracting. He started losing his fingernails. He was losing his hair. He wasn’t even 100 pounds,” Mrs. Thomas said. 

A social worker with YesCare, the medical provider under contract with the Alabama Department of Corrections, began the process of getting William released on a medical furlough, but that process was dragging. A correctional officer who knew someone connected to the nonprofit Redemption Earned suggested William might be a good candidate for release, and Redemption Earned reached out and took him on as a client. He was paroled in April 2024 and was sent to a Birmingham nursing home in May of that year. 

William Thomas with his father and his son. Multiple generations of the Thomas family provide support to William.

William just recently began receiving Medicaid, which only pays for some medical costs incurred up to three months prior, so Mrs. Thomas is still dealing with his medical bills, and because she has to care for him day and night, she’s unable to work. Her retired husband went back to work but has only been able to find a part-time job. It’s been difficult getting her son the kind of therapy she hopes will help him get more of his life back. 

The TIRR Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, Texas specializes in providing therapy for patients with catastrophic brain and spinal cord injuries. The family is raising funds to get him flown to the Texas hospital. 

“We know he won’t be the same, but we hope he gets a better quality of life,” Mrs. Thomas said. He is improving since he’s been home, she said. The two have worked out a way to communicate, and he’s able to move his arms and legs on command. 

“I try to ask him yes and no questions. So we’ve developed a process of where he blinks several times for yes and he doesn’t blink at all, or maybe once, for no. I’m a drill sergeant, and I told him, you know, I’m not gonna give up. We’re gonna keep going. We’re gonna keep going,” Mrs. Thomas said. She had advice for others who have loved ones inside an Alabama prison. 

“If they have a loved one in the prison system, no matter what their demons are, do not abandon them. I know most of the time the demons are drugs, and there is a major expense with that,” Mrs. Thomas said. “But don’t abandon them. They need a voice. They need an advocate to fight for them.”

William Thomas, pictured during healthier times, with his father and son.

William was incarcerated after a 2019 parole violation. His original conviction was for first degree-robbery in 2013, for which he was sentenced to 15 years. He would have been eligible for parole consideration in June 2025, a year and nine months after he was found in his cell. 

There were times while her son was incarcerated that she’d call the prison seeking a welfare check on William, only to later learn the officers who did the check mistreated him for having to conduct the check, she said. Today, the struggle for her is to try and care for him as best she can. Once a gifted athlete who played football and baseball, he’s now fighting to regain basic functions. “I just wake up every day and I know my son needs me. I’m learning how to do all of this feeding tubes and catheter cleaning. I’m learning how to provide medication. Love is driving me,” she said. 

 

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A prison death and rumors of wrongdoing, but no answers for a grieving widow

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By Eddie Burkhalter, Appleseed Researcher

Stephanie Lewis on Thursday was fighting to learn more about how her husband died at Childersburg Work Release facility in Alpine on Wednesday. No one would tell her where his body was. And there were rumors that his death was the result of excessive force by officers.

Rodrequis Woods, 42, was pronounced dead at a local hospital, an officer told her by phone, but the circumstances around his death were shrouded in secrecy a day later. As of Thursday afternoon his grieving widow still did not know basic information about her husband’s death. 

Reached by phone on Thursday, an Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC)employee declined to tell Mrs. Lewis where his body was located and said it was unclear to the employee whether he’d receive a full autopsy or just a toxicology screening, Mrs. Lewis told Appleseed. 

Stephanie Lewis and her husband, Rodrequis Woods, who died in prison at age 42

Mrs. Lewis, who has been active in criminal justice reform efforts and who has attended Appleseed events as recently as November, said she first learned of her husband’s death in a call around 8pm on Wednesday from a woman whom she didn’t know. An Alabama Department of Corrections officer later called to confirm the death, and alleged that drugs were involved upon Woods returning from his job at the Sylacauga Housing Authority. 

Mrs. Lewis said the officer told her, “I think he put something in his mouth and he started having a seizure” but she added that her husband had never abused drugs, but had in fact been experiencing some unknown medical issues in recent months. She also learned from a social media post of allegations that officers at the work release center may have had a role in his death, an allegation that hasn’t been confirmed. Since then, Mrs. Lewis has been frantically reaching out to advocates, journalists, and other families for the information she desperately needs.

Appleseed reached out to ADOC with questions on Mr. Woods’s death, but as of Thursday afternoon hadn’t received a response. Appleseed is also seeking to speak to others at the facility. 

ADOC no longer provides full autopsies for all who die in prison, following UAB Hospital’s April 22, 2024, termination of its longstanding agreement with ADOC to conduct autopsies and toxicology screens on suspected natural and overdose deaths. 

The agreement had ADOC paying $2,200 per autopsy and $100 per toxicology test, according to court documents in a lawsuit. That revenue may not have outweighed the fallout from a lawsuit in which families discovered their incarcerated loved ones’ bodies had been returned missing internal organs. Since UAB terminated its contract, in-custody deaths from natural causes or suspected overdoses are no longer receiving state-provided full autopsies, leaving many families unsure how their loved ones died.

“All inmate deaths are investigated by the ADOC’s Law Enforcement Services Division. However, under existing state law, post-mortem examinations or autopsies are only required for deaths resulting from unlawful, suspicious, or unnatural causes (Ala. Code Section 36-18-2). In those cases, the deceased is transported to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences for an autopsy,” ADOC wrote in a statement to Appleseed in May 2024, when Appleseed first reported UAB’s contract termination.

“Deaths not covered under Ala. Code Section 36-18-2 receives a toxicology screen prior to release to the inmate’s family. Although the department previously contracted with UAB Hospital to conduct autopsies on suspected overdose or natural deaths, UAB terminated its long-standing agreement effective April 22, 2024. Since that time, the department has made numerous inquiries but has been unable to find another vendor to provide autopsies for ADOC inmates who died of natural causes or suspected overdoses,” the statement continued. 

Mr. Woods has also recently exhibited symptoms of an unknown medical issue, and two months before he died had called his wife to tell her that he’d gotten dizzy and fainted. He was checked out by an ADOC nurse and his vital signs were good, she said. They were never able to determine what caused that medical incident. “I tried not to worry about it, but I was concerned,” Mrs. Lewis said of the fainting incident. Mr. Woods did have a diagnosis of sickle cell disease.

The couple had been together for 18 years and married for the last eight. Mrs. Lewis’s 14-year-old son, whom she adopted as an infant, has only ever known Mr. Woods as his father. The two were very close, she said. Mrs. Lewis and her son visited with Mr. Woods just last Sunday. The couple talked by phone every day. 

Stephanie Lewis and Rodrequis Woods had been married 8 years. He died after returning to prison from his work release job.

“As long as he doesn’t see me break down, he’s okay,” Mrs. Lewis said of her son, who asked to stay home from school on Thursday to be with her. “And I said no, because if you’re at home, we’re just gonna sit here and cry together.” 

Mrs. Lewis described her husband as a devoted football fan, who played football while in college at the University of West Alabama, and at Miles College  Mr. Woods began his life with the possibility of parole sentence in 2004. His next possible parole hearing date was scheduled for 2027, and he’d already received recommendations for release from an outside law enforcement officer and an ADOC officer, she said. 

A reduction of transparency surrounding in-custody deaths in Alabama comes as state prisons are seeing more deaths than ever. Alabama prisons in 2023 saw record high deaths for a second straight year, with 327 lives lost. More people died in Alabama prisons per capita than in any state in the nation in 2024, and at a rate that was nearly double those of the next highest state.

ADOC has yet to honor Appleseed’s request sent in December for the names and dates of death for those who died in Alabama prisons in 2025. 

 

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Jonathan Tolbert survived prison, but not the psychological wounds that followed him out

By Eddie Burkhalter, Appleseed Researcher

Deborah Tolbert found her son slumped over on her garage floor. After Jonathan Tolbert survived an Alabama prison, where he was raped by several men, beaten and stabbed, the physical and psychological wounds persisted. He died at the age of 27.

Jonathan Tolbert was only 18 when he tried heroin with a friend and was soon addicted. In 2014, they began breaking into cars in St. Clair County in order to support their drug habit. Both were arrested and charged with those crimes. His friend bonded out of jail and died of an overdose just after his release, Ms. Tolbert said.

Jonathan was sentenced to 10 years, split to serve three in prison and ordered to participate in the prison system’s Substance Abuse Program, known as SAP, but there were roadblocks in a prison system where even a judge’s orders are virtually meaningless.  “You’re on a waiting list forever to even get into the class,” Ms. Tolbert said, and there were other problems. “They have other inmates that are like monitors. They extort people. They want a pack of cigarettes or whatever to be able to go into the class, and if you don’t have it or can’t give it, then they write you up, and then you wind up not being able to go to the class.”

Deborah Tolbert is one of countless Alabama parents who have struggled mightily to undo the damage that incarceration in the Alabama prison system did to their children. Appleseed communicates with dozens of these families, attempting to connect them with resources or with other families for support. Though their specific circumstances vary, there are common threads and we share their stories to help similar families feel less alone.

Ms. Tolbert knew she was not alone after learning of the death of Daniel Williams, 22, at Staton Correctional Facility. He was kidnapped and held for days by an incarcerated man with a long history of sexual violence then raped and tortured before being killed on Nov. 9, 2023. The suspect in that death has not been charged in connection with the homicide because prosecutors say there was not enough evidence for an indictment.

“Everything that happened to him, happened to Jonathan, except Jonathan didn’t die,” Ms. Tolbert said of her son’s 2019 attack inside prison. During his incarceration Jonathan was jumped by a group of other men, stabbed and nearly lost an ear, she said. Her son also witnessed the stabbing death of 56-year-old Ray Anthony Little at Bibb County Correctional Facility in March 2019.

“Jonathan said that the older man never bothered anybody. All he ever did was sit on his bunk and read. He said he was standing in a hallway or whatever, leaned against the wall and he was reading, and this guy came running past him and cut his throat,” Ms. Tolbert said. Her son said the man who killed Mr. Little was “wigging out” on a synthetic drug called Flaka. “It bothered him. He was upset,” she said of her son witnessing the killing. “He was a big-hearted person.”

In August 2019, just weeks before his expected release, Jonathan’s life was threatened by another incarcerated man who demanded money from his mother, but Jonathan refused to ask his mother for the money or to let her know of the demand at the time. She kept meticulous notes, written down after every call from her son. He called her just after getting back to his dorm that day.

“He said that he was going to find a razor and cut his wrist. He would rather take his own life than someone take it for him. John choked up and was about to cry, which he never did,” she said. He also agreed to let his mother call a neighbor who was a local sheriff’s deputy and a U.S. Marshall, which was a sign to her that her son was in serious trouble, because in the past he wouldn’t allow her to ask for help for fear that doing so would only invite more violence upon him.

Ms. Tolbert called her neighbor who called Bibb prison and talked to an officer who told him that if Jonathan qualified to be placed into segregation – often used to keep people safe from others – he’d be placed there, but that did not happen. The neighbor then called another officer at Bibb prison who told him that both Jonathan and the man who had been threatening him were brought to the office and were talked to and sent back to the dorm and that everything was fine. “So you just threw him back out there to the wolves?” the neighbor asked the officer, Ms. Tolbert said. “Then, of course, that night it happened to Jonathan. He was hogtied. He was raped by several men.”

Jonathan Tolbert in happier days, working to adjust to life following years of abuse in prison.

Ms. Tolbert was also extorted by other men inside Bibb prison who were threatening her son. She paid them via Cash app and in Walmart-to-Walmart payment transfers, she said. Those extortion attempts continued after his release in October 2019, with one of the men calling Ms. Tolbert’s home phone and cell phone and threatening to have someone “reach out and touch you.” The Tolberts’ tortured experiences play out over and over again among families of incarcerated Alabamians.

Following his release, Jonathan struggled to deal with the violence that he lived through while incarcerated. He saw a therapist a few times but was always asked to talk about his rape, and it became to much to discuss. “He couldn’t sleep at night. If he did finally fall asleep, he would start screaming, like night terrors,” Ms. Tolbert said. Because of the continued threats even after his release, he became paranoid and would watch from the home’s windows for hours, thinking he saw someone outside. He was eventually diagnosed with recurrent major depressive episodes, chronic post traumatic stress center syndrome, generalized anxiety disorder and schizophrenia and was placed on several medications, but he continued to suffer.

“I tried so hard for a couple of years getting him in with doctors and trying to get help from somebody,” Ms. Tolbert said, but he continued to spiral, often jumping out of moving cars and attempting suicide. He could no longer be in crowds or shop in Walmart with his mother.

“One time he stood out there behind my car and took a whole bottle of pills and held a knife to the side of his neck and told me that if I called 911, that he would shove the knife into his neck, so I stood there and waited for him to start passing out and when his head went down on to the trunk of my car I called 911 immediately,” she said.

On March 22, 2023, he was severely injured in a fall from the rock wall of a dam while fishing and was airlifted to UAB with head and severe left arm injuries. He was released from the hospital and spent the month of April seeing a surgeon each week and had an appointment set for May 15 at a pain management clinic. But on May 11, 2023 he was visited by a friend at her home for about half an hour. Jonathan came inside from the garage and asked to borrow a cigarette from his mother, and walked back to the garage.

“I found him crouched down on the ground, and I thought that he had had a seizure from the head injury. I’ve seen him in a lot of situations, and at first I just thought it was another situation and I’d be able to beat on his back and get him to open his eyes and look at me, but he didn’t,” she said.

She found the unsmoked cigarette on the ground near where he was laying. His toxicology report showed he had Para-fluorofentanyl, a powerful synthetic version of fentanyl, in his system. Although he did not die in prison, neither did he survive prison as the demons he brought home from those tortuous years never left him.

“He never had an opportunity to live. He was a teenager when he went in, and then there were so many issues for a couple of years when he was out,” Ms. Tolbert said of his prison sentence.

She tries to remember his childhood, back when he was an energetic child, afraid of nothing and always on the go. Her son had the “prettiest eyes in the world and a one-in-a-million smile.” She raised Jonathan and his two brothers on her own.

Now, Deborah Tolbert is active in groups that raise awareness about the deadly drug fentanyl, and is asking for changes to Alabama’s broken prison system. She thinks correctional officers need to be checked for contraband more often, paid more and trained better, and she worries that the new mega-prison under construction won’t come close to solving the crisis.

“If my son hadn’t suffered so much trauma and violence in the Alabama prison system, he may still be with us today. Jonathan was an adventurer and had dreams. Jonathan really tried for so long when he came home, but his mind just wouldn’t let him move forward,” Ms. Tolbert said.

“They just need to tear it down and rebuild, and I’m not talking about any prison, but the whole system,” she said. “I don’t feel like Alabama cares.”

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Appleseed’s 2025 Annual Report – A Time for Freedom

By Carla Crowder, Executive Director

Dear friends and supporters, Five years ago, Appleseed waded into the despair within Alabama’s prison system with a determination to confront unnecessary incarceration one life at a time. Today, we celebrate freedom for 30 people once condemned to life sentences. Not 30 cases. Not 30 wins. These are 30 people, fellow Alabamians who now walk alongside us in our fight for justice.

Many grace the cover of our 2025 Annual Report. People like Larry Garrett, who served 36 years in prison for burglaries, then took up truck driving two years ago. He now drives tractor-trailers across the United States at age 72. People like John Meadows, 54, who devoted his incarceration to education and now works as a plumber. And people like our team member Ronald McKeithen, who spent 37 years behind bars and now inspires others by sharing his story across the country. This year, Ron was appointed to the Statewide Reentry Commission and he got married!

Alabama’s broken and brutal prison system was exposed in new ways across the United States this year with the release of the HBO documentary, “The Alabama Solution.” The suffering displayed in this challenging but important film reminds us why Appleseed remains focused on pragmatic, bipartisan solutions to the state’s overreliance on prisons and punishment.

The only way to solve this crisis is to care about our fellow human beings who are incarcerated, to believe in redemption, and to support formerly incarcerated Alabamians as they navigate the worries and the wonders of life on the outside after decades in the darkness of an Alabama prison. We could not be more grateful for the judges, district attorneys, family members, and reentry partners who have made our legal work possible for the last five years. We are indebted to dozens of funders who have invested in this monumental effort. But there is so much more to do. That’s why Appleseed has taken on a new project, supporting criminalized survivors, women whose convictions were driven by domestic violence. We’re also stepping up our parole advocacy, representing people with life sentences as they become eligible for parole. This year we took eight parole cases and won release for each person we represented.

And we helped two clients earn pardons. While 30 is a nice, round number worth celebrating, there’s another number that tells us so much more about how needless these extreme prison sentences are: zero. That’s how many Appleseed clients have returned to prison. Thank you all for playing a role in their success.

Here’s to more freedom in 2026!

Read the full Annual Report here.

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Amid overdose crisis in Alabama prisons, drug exposure sidelines two corrections officers

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By Eddie Burkhalter, Appleseed Researcher

Two officers at St. Clair Correctional Facility were treated for exposure to an unidentified substance on November 29, requiring both to be given the life-saving NARCAN treatment and one of those officers to be hospitalized, the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) confirmed for Appleseed. 

It’s unclear from ADOC’s response what the substance was, but according to information from a person serving inside the prison the officers were exposed to fentanyl. 

The incident highlights the wide prevalence of drugs inside Alabama prisons, which in 2023 had an overdose mortality rate 20 times the national average across all state prisons in 2019, the last year for which the federal government has made that data available. The prison system’s overall mortality rate in 2024 was higher than that in any other state, and was nearly double that of the next highest state. 

The outside of St. Clair Correctional Facility

An ADOC spokeswoman confirmed to Appleseed this week that the officers were searching an incarcerated man when they came into contact with the substance. 

“They were escorted to the Health Care Unit where NARCAN was administered. One officer was sent home to rest following the incident. The other officer was transported to an area hospital for further treatment and was later discharged. Both officers are recovered and back at full duty,” ADOC spokeswoman Kelly Betts said. 

Exposure to illicit drugs inside Alabama prisons is a real and life-threatening matter for the staff who work inside the dangerously understaffed prisons, and yet it’s important to note that Illicit drugs are most often brought in and sold by ADOC  staff themselves, as publicized arrests and interviews with incarcerated people show. While ADOC has made increasing efforts in recent months to catch and charge these employees, drugs and the overdose deaths persist.

Records requests show 366 ADOC staff were fired between 2018 to 2023, and 134 were charged with work-related crimes, ranging from smuggling contraband to assault and murder.

Appleseed’s review of court records for the 169 Alabama Department of Corrections employees arrested between January 2020 and June 2025 statewide suggest that relatively few officers convicted of crimes serve prison sentences, with most cases instead resulting in suspended sentences, probation or pre-trial diversion. It’s important to note, however, that in misdemeanor cases for first-time offenders, such sentences would not be uncommon, and among the 79 felony cases Appleseed reviewed, several were prosecuted federally and did receive prison time.

Two men died of suspected drug overdoses at St. Clair on July 30. The next day, ADOC Lieutenant Calvin Bush was arrested and charged with trafficking fentanyl and marijuana, and promoting prison contraband. Investigators found a large amount of drugs and contraband in a filing cabinet inside the prison Bush had control of, and at a home in Odenville, where Bush lives, according to court records.

“During the search, agents recovered a significant amount of drugs and contraband, including 4,020 grams of methamphetamine, 350 grams of promethazine liquid, 340 grams of synthetic cannabinoid, nine oxycodone pills, 326 grams of sprayed paper, 156 cell phones, two cellular hotspots, 8,980 grams of marijuana, 100 grams of crack cocaine, 16 grams of cocaine powder, and 610 grams of flakka precursor powder. Additionally, a related search yielded 2.5 pounds of marijuana and 60 grams of methamphetamine,” ADOC told Appleseed in a previous statement.

Court records show that St. Clair County District Judge Brandi Hufford in September agreed to a joint motion from Bush’s defense attorney and the prosecutor to push back Bush’s preliminary hearing until Nov. 4, 2025, “to allow the investigation results to continue by agreement of both parties.” The judge approved a subsequent joint motion on November 4 and moved that hearing date to March 3, 2026. 

 

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