Woods was convicted in the shooting death of three police officers and injuring 1/4 back in 2004 while they were executing a warrant.

But Woods never actually shot at the officers.

It was a man named Carrie Spencer who was with him when police arrived.

That's what he said.

Spencer even confessed to being the sole gunman who killed the officers.

Ultimately, Woods was convicted on four capital murder charges.

He tried appealing his conviction and argued that he had been given inadequate representation.

His appeal was denied by both the Alabama Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of the United States.

High profile individuals from the son of Martin Luther King Jr to director Ava Duvernay to Kim Kardashian West.

All tweeted against Woods is execution.

But the governor of Alabama released a statement doubling down, saying, This is not a decision that I take lightly, but I firmly believe in the rule of law and that justice must be served.

Joining me now to discuss the complexities of this case as well as the role of the Supreme Court plate, is criminal law Professor Echo Janka.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

So we see convictions and appeals turned down all the time.

What makes this case particularly unique?

I think this case was difficult for everybody because, um, there's no question on anybody's mind, the prosecutor or the defense that Woods was not the person who shot these police officers.

There's testimony that he didn't do it.

There's confessions, as you point out, by the actual shooter that he was not the one to do it.

But on top of that, the case was just riven with really problematic evidence.

Two of the witnesses recanted and said they were pressured by the prosecution.

Do it.

There are even rumors of police corruption that the police were not there just to serve a warrant, but that they were part of unlawful and corrupt bribery.

So there was so much doubt in this case that many people thought the finale of the death sentence just had to be forestalled so we could get to the bottom of it and really kind of scratching my head.

And initially the Supreme Court had decided to stay the execution, then reverse that right away?

Why and how unusual is something like that?

It was very strange.

The Supreme Court gave stay that ended up being for little more than four hours.

To be sure, the court stay was on a very technical issue.

Woods was not told that Woods was given a choice between two different ways of dying.

Essentially two different chemical protocols.

One of which, the state of Alabama doesn't yet have a full protocol.

So had he chosen that won, the state would have had to wait.

It would have bought him more time.

Tohave his case appealed.

So this is part of the overall question of how he was failed at every point by his counsel.

It really was.

The fact that he didn't choose a protocol is why he's no longer here.

But why did they then reverse?

I think on that technical issue, the case was never gonna be reversed.

Indeed, Um, the sort of the more substantive stay that asked the court to look at the substantive issues of lack of effective counsel as well as a conflict of evidence was never reviewed by the court.

And is this really unprecedented?

Or is this something that the Supreme Court does kind of waffle.

Well, there's.

There's a larger fight in which this is embedded, that where the Supreme Court members of the Supreme Court, what we might think of as the conservative members of string court are more interested in staying.

The courts hand in having fewer.

It's a complex set of friends with fewer stays, fewer injunctions, fewer interferences with lower courts.

And so we see this as part of a larger trend of fight.

So I'm not surprised that on this technical issue, the court was not going to reverses.

It was not going to piss stays execution.

Nathaniel Woods family released a statement saying the fight is far from over.

Nathaniel is an innocent man, and that will always be the truth.

We're not giving up what else can be done at this point?

You know, it is a stunning case because, of course, he's now not only are three police officers dead, but Nathaniel Woods is no longer with us.

But what is really true is that even if his life is over, his story's not over.

There are just countless organizations and countless families who fight every year in orderto have their loved ones full story come out in order to be able to proclaim to the world that this person who was executed by the state is ultimately innocent on.

We see that sometimes spanning over decades, I think on top of that, of course, their family surely cares that Nathaniel Woods life was not, in the end in vain, that the next person who doesn't get counsel, who tells them what they're facing, what the capital charge might be.

That, for example, Alabama remains the only state in the nation where you could be executed without unanimous vote of a jury.

That there's not another Nathaniel Woods who loses their life because they don't have the right legal counsel.

And so for that, I'm sure the family will always want to stand all right.

Mr Younger, Thank you so much for explaining that to us.

We appreciate it.

Thank you.

Hi, everyone.

George Stephanopoulos here.

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