Alabama is set to execute a man on Thursday after he dropped his appeals, admitting that he is guilty of raping and murdering a woman 15 years ago and does not want to continue “wasting everybody’s time.”
James Osgood, 55, will be executed by lethal injection at 6 p.m. at the William Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. When his sentence is carried out, he will join the roughly one in ten people on death row in America who have requested their own executions.
A jury convicted Osgood of capital murder for killing Tracy Lynn Brown in Chilton County in 2010. Prosecutors claimed Osgood cut Brown’s throat after he and his girlfriend sexually assaulted her.
The man told reporters that he wishes to apologize to Brown’s family and that he has dropped his appeals because, “I am guilty of murder.” In a letter to his lawyer explaining his decision to seek an execution date, he stated that he is tired and no longer believes he is “even existing.”
“I am a firm believer in, as I stated in court, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I took someone’s life, so mine was forfeited. “I don’t believe in sitting here and wasting everyone’s time and money,” Osgood told the Associated Press.
Brown was discovered dead in her home on October 23, 2010. Prosecutors said Osgood admitted to police that he and his girlfriend sexually assaulted Brown, forcing her to perform sex acts, after discussing their fantasies of kidnapping and torturing others. Then he cut her throat. His girlfriend, Brown’s cousin, was sentenced to life in prison.
“I can’t imagine anyone doing that to anyone, including their worst enemy. I don’t know what kind of mind thinks that way,” Brown’s stepmother, Jackie Wileman, told the judge during Osgood’s 2014 sentencing hearing.
The judge noted Osgood’s difficult childhood, which included sexual abuse, abandonment, and a suicide attempt, when he handed down the death sentence. However, the judge also stated that it was Osgood who cut Brown’s neck and stabbed her while she begged the couple not to harm her.
Last week, Osgood expressed regret for the “pain and suffering” he has caused Brown’s family and himself.
“I would like to say to the victim’s family, I apologize,” according to Osgood. “I’m not going to ask their forgiveness because I know they can’t give it.” Only God can forgive, he added.
An appeals court overturned Osgood’s initial death sentence, citing improper jury instructions. At his resentencing in 2018, Osgood asked to be executed, stating that he did not want the families to go through another hearing.
Last year, the Death Penalty Information Center reported that 165 of the people executed since a moratorium on the death penalty ended in 1977 — a total of more than 1650 people — requested to be executed. The center also stated that the vast majority of these volunteers had a history of mental illness, substance abuse, or suicidal thoughts.
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey made a rare move this year by commuting Robin “Rocky” Myers’ death sentence to life in prison. The governor stated that there were enough questions about his guilt that she could not proceed with his execution. It was the only time Ivey has granted clemency, and the first time an Alabama governor had commuted a death sentence since 1999.
