Judith Neeleys suit seeking release moves forward

Judith Ann Neelley

Convicted killer Judith Ann Neelley can proceed with her lawsuit claiming that the Alabama Legislature exceeded its authority when it passed a law to bar her from parole eligibility.  In a ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge W. Keith Watkins granted the state's motion to dismiss Neelley's claims on state law but let her federal law claims proceed.  Neelley claims the 2003 law making her ineligible for parole violates the U.S. Constitution because it retroactively increased her punishment and specifically targeted her.

Neelley's crimes, committed with her husband Alvin Neelley more than three decades ago, drew attention because of their brutality.

Gov. Fob James' decision to spare Neelley from the electric chair sparked the legislation that led to her ongoing lawsuit.

A DeKalb County jury convicted Neelley of capital murder in 1983 in the slaying of 13-year-old Lisa Ann Millican.

Judith and Alvin Neelley had kidnapped the girl from a Rome Georgia mall. Testimony showed the child was raped and that Judith Neelley injected her with drain cleaner, shot her and shoved her into Little River Canyon in northeast Alabama.  The jury voted 10-2 for life without parole, but the trial judge sentenced her to death.  The U.S. Supreme Court denied Neelley's last appeal in January 1999. A few days days later, James commuted her sentence to life. James gave no explanation for the decision, one of his final acts before leaving office.  State law at the time said a person whose death sentence was commuted to life was eligible for parole after 15 years.

After consulting with the attorney general, the parole board informed Neelley in 1999 that she would be eligible for parole in January 2014.

But lawmakers intervened.  In 2003, the Legislature passed a bill saying that any person whose death sentence was commuted to life could not be eligible for parole. It made the law retroactive to Sept. 1, 1998, about four months before James commuted Neelley's sentence. In January of this year, with the 15-year wait prescribed in the earlier law over, Neelley's lawyer asked the parole board to set a hearing.

The parole board again sought an attorney general's opinion. Attorney General Luther Strange's office advised that because of the 2003 law, Neelley was not eligible.

Neelley filed her lawsuit in April, seeking to have the law overturned.

If Neelley is ever granted parole in Alabama, she would face punishment in Georgia for the murder of 22-year-old Janice Chatman of Rome, Ga.

She pleaded guilty in that case and testified against her husband. Alvin Neelley died in 2005 while serving a life sentence in Georgia for Chatman's murder.