He Calls Me by Lightning

by S Jonathan Bass

  But for Morel, these cases were less about saving a life than about boosting his ego and receiving more notoriety. He thrived on high-profile capital murder cases like Caliph Washington’s and once boasted, “If you want to change things in this world, keep your name in the news-paper, be the news good or bad.” Morel Montgomery’s name was frequently in the local papers for both his brilliant legal victories and his unseemly underworld clientele. He provided legal representation for a southeastern liquor syndicate controlled by Chicago mobster Al Capone and was once indicted for “violating or conspiring to violate” internal revenue laws governing illegal whiskey. Montgomery also received a two-year suspension by the Alabama Bar Association following a bribery charge.

  In contrast, the handsome cigar-smoking Fred Blanton championed the lost causes of underdogs in appellate cases. “I always want to do my duty for indigent defendants who need representation,” Blanton once wrote, “and I welcome assistance from whatever source available.”

  Even with the hardworking and compassionate duo of Montgomery and Blanton on his case, Caliph Washington was running out of options. As his clemency hearing approached, he found himself sinking deeper into the darkness of despair. Most condemned men expected nothing good to come from the hearing, and Caliph was losing all hope. One day as he sat on his bunk, a preacher walked by and asked him what he was “crawled up in a hull about?” Washington glared at the minister and snapped, “How would you feel if you were fixing to die in a couple of weeks?” The minister could see the depression and desperation on Caliph’s face. “The impact of having to die doesn’t sink in until . . . before your clemency hearing,” Washington continued. “It’s pretty hard to pretend that you’re going to live on when down in your heart you know that you will have to die. That you will be executed.”

  Two weeks prior to the clemency hearing, on March 5, a tornado roared through Bessemer like a runaway freight train, destroying or damaging more than one hundred homes and businesses. “It is fantastic,” Mayor Jess Lanier said, “that no one was killed.” That same day, down the road in Kilby Prison, Caliph Washington’s hopelessness turned to storming rage, and he lashed out at inmate Robert Swain, a twenty-two-year-old black man who was on death row for raping a white woman in Talladega. The bloody fistfight with Swain earned Washington another twenty-one-day trip to the hole. In this dark room he would wait for his clemency hearing.

  Unknown to Washington, a lone glimmer of hope emerged from a most unlikely source: Alabama’s new governor, George Wallace. Following his stinging defeat to the race-baiting John Patterson in 1958, the politically opportunistic Wallace vowed to supporters that “no other son-of-a-bitch will out nigger me again.” He returned to his work as a circuit judge for Barbour and Bullock Counties and forced a confrontation with the U.S. Civil Rights Commission over voting records from his circuit.

  When he refused to hand over the materials, Federal Judge Frank Johnson held Wallace in contempt for defying the commission. Rather than face jail time, the manipulative Wallace quietly turned over the records to a grand jury and they passed them to the commission, allowing Wallace to brag about defying the federal government. “This empty but symbolic gesture,” historian Glenn Eskew wrote, “appealed to many Alabama voters, who saw meaning in the resistance to federal encroachment.” Keeping true to his pledge, Wallace resorted to racial demagoguery throughout his 1962 campaign, blasted the federal government for encroaching on states’ rights, and vowed to “stand in the schoolhouse door” to stop integration. “He is a fighter,” Wallace supporter and Bessemer mayor Jess Lanier proclaimed, “and our state loves a fighter.” He won in a landslide.

  In January 1963, Wallace took the oath of office for his first term as the state’s chief executive and promised in his inaugural speech to maintain segregation in Alabama now, tomorrow, and forever. If Wallace was willing to compromise most of his core principles for political expediency, he also remained, however, morally opposed to the death penalty. “I, like many other governors before me,” he said in 1963, “wish this cup would pass from me.” He loathed the “terrible burden” of this “solemn and awesome” power to choose life or death for another human. “Any governor would dread this duty and responsibility,” he wrote. “But it’s something the governor has got to face under the law.” This was one of the most serious obligations of his office, he emphasized. “No decision is made without much time, effort and study devoted to the decision. . . . You may be sure that this matter causes me to lose much sleep and I have given prayerful consideration to every case involved.”

  Those who worked closely with Wallace during these years believed the governor had, at the least, serious reservations about the use of the death penalty. Albert Brewer, a key Wallace supporter in the Alabama House of Representatives, recalled that the issue caused the governor great consternation. “He simply did not want someone executed at the hands of the state,” Brewer emphasized. Wallace’s personal lawyer, Maury Smith, was more direct. “I believe he was opposed to the death penalty,” Smith said. “He was a very sensitive man and easy to appeal to. . . . That really was his nature.” State legal adviser Hugh Maddox agreed: “Most people would be quite surprised at Wallace’s true feelings on the death penalty.”

  Each previous Alabama governor sent a long line of prisoners to their death in the state’s electric chair. Between 1927 and 1963, on average, Alabama governors allowed almost seventeen executions per four-year term. The highest number of electrocutions, thirty-two, occurred during the term of Frank Dixon between 1939 and 1942. The lowest number was four during James Folsom’s second term from 1955 to 1959. John Patterson, George Wallace’s predecessor, approved five executions between 1959 and 1962.

  While wrestling with the moral dilemma of capital punishment, Wallace decided to postpone all Alabama executions. For Caliph Washington, and the seven others waiting for death, having George Wallace occupying the governor’s office saved their lives. Beginning on March 22, 1963, just one week prior to the scheduled execution, Wallace issued a reprieve for Washington. The formal citation bore the state’s seal and began with the antiquated salutation: “In the Name and by the Authority of the State of Alabama, I, George C. Wallace, Governor of the State of Alabama; To all Sheriffs, Keepers of Prisoners, Civil Magistrates and others to whom these presents shall come—GREETINGS.” The document reviewed Washington’s conviction of first-degree murder and his sentence of death, to be carried out on March 29, 1963. “And Whereas,” it continued, “for divers good and sufficient reasons it appears to me that the said Caliph Washington should be granted a reprieve. Now, Therefore, I George C. Wallace, Governor of the State of Alabama, by virtue of the power and authority in me vested by the Constitution and laws of the State of Alabama, do by these present, order that reprieve be and it is hereby granted to Caliph Washington until Friday, June 7, 1963, at which time, unless otherwise ordered, let the sentence of death be executed.”

  On May 29, Wallace granted Washington another reprieve until August 9. On July 19, 1963, the governor postponed the execution until November 29; on September 19, he delayed it until December 6. A reporter for the Birmingham News branded Wallace a “softie when it comes to staying the execution of Kilby Prison Death Row inmates.” Washington and seven other inmates were all scheduled to die on December 6. “If the governor does not again deal out mercy and all eight are executed,” the reporter added, “it will be an all-time record for the more than 30 years the state has been executing condemned men in the Kilby electric chair.” Joining Caliph for the December 6 date were Drewey Aaron, William F. Bowen, Roosevelt Howard, James Cobern, Johnnie Coleman, Robert Swain, and Leroy Taylor. “Governor Wallace has said little about how he feels,” the News reported, “but judging from the past, most guesses here are that more reprieves will be granted.”

  The journalist was correct. On December 3, Wallace granted Washington another reprieve and pushed the date of execution back to February 28, 1964. At the time, one Alabama newspaper e
ditor complained that although Wallace had a reputation as a “wicked despot and race-hater,” he was proving “to be the most soft-hearted of all Alabama governors” on the death penalty. The delays continued. On February 25, Wallace gave Washington until April 10; on April 6, he gave him until June 26; on June 16, he gave him until September 11.

  While Caliph waited and prayed, the Civil Rights Act of 1964—outlawing public segregation—took effect on July 2. Five days later in Bessemer, a group of black teens decided to test the act’s public accommodation provision at McLellan’s store, located in the business district on Second Avenue and Nineteenth Street. Inspired by the civil rights campaign in Birmingham a year before, classmates Edward Harris, Albert Shade, Tommy White, Willie Duff, Herman Williams, Herbert Pigrom, and three others decided to eat at the store’s segregated lunch counter on Tuesday, July 7. A nervous waitress asked, “What do y’all want?” The teens ordered cherry Cokes and she responded, “You know y’all not supposed to be over here.” From the front window, the manager spotted a group of white men walking towards the store carrying child-size baseball bats. He tried to lock the doors before they entered, but they forced their way inside, ran to the lunch counter, and began beating the teens. Without training in nonviolent direct action, the boys fought back as they dashed for the exit. “It wasn’t like we were going to sit there and take a beating,” Pigrom recalled.

  By the time they made it out the front door, the store was in shambles and blood stained the floor. Police Chief George Barron said none of the white assailants could be identified, and no charges were filed. “We were naïve enough to think the law was the law,” one of the teens later said, “and things were going to change.”

  In the nearby Jefferson County Courthouse, a grand jury urged the governor to allow Caliph Washington’s sentence to be carried out and demanded that no clemency be considered “for such a cold-blooded murder and the taking of human life.” During Wallace’s first eighteen months in office, he gave Washington seven reprieves and scores of others to the rest of the death row inmates.

  While no prisoner died in Big Yellow Mama during those months, this changed in the fall of 1964. James Cobern, a white thirty-eight-year-old itinerant farm worker from Chilton County, had been on death row since being convicted of the 1959 murder of his ex-girlfriend, Mamie Belle Walker. Walker’s mutilated body was found near the café she owned in December 1959, and Cobern was sentenced to death the following year. After granting eleven stays of execution, Wallace allowed the sentence to proceed upon the twelfth request. Hundreds of letters poured into the governor’s office asking that Cobern’s life be spared, but the governor held fast. The evening of September 3, Cobern ate his last meal: chicken, french fries, rolls, milk, coffee, and coconut cream pie. Cobern smiled and shook hands with guards, ministers, and onlookers as he went to the electric chair. His last words were “Everything is all right.” He died at 12:14 a.m. on September 4.

  For Caliph Washington, Cobern’s death cast a foreboding shadow on his scheduled execution a week later. Would Wallace deny Washington’s request? Would he be the next person to die in the Alabama electric chair? On September 8 at the clemency hearing, Washington begged Wallace, “Please spare my life.” Wallace told Washington that he “agonized over such matters, but it is a decision the governor must make.”

  Two days later, on Thursday, September 10, Caliph Washington had still received no word from the governor. He took up residence in the Bible Room and spent his time praying. Just hours before he was due to sit in the chair, Wallace issued another reprieve and reset the execution for September 25.

  Time, which was once Caliph Washington’s only friend in prison, now became his most feared enemy. With each reprieve from Wallace, the next execution date was set closer. In the next six weeks, Caliph would have five more clemency hearings, and Wallace would test his solemn responsibility. On September 24, the governor issued another stay just a few hours before Washington’s scheduled death. The new date was set for October 9, but Wallace issued yet another late reprieve to spare his life. He delayed the October 30 execution on the evening of the 29th. The next date was set for November 20, but he stopped the proceedings on November 19. The state rescheduled the electrocution for December 4, 1964.

  Wallace’s thirteen stays of execution prevented Caliph Washington from taking those final thirteen steps into the broad maple arms of Big Yellow Mama. The governor received several letters urging him to give Washington more time. “There seems to be a reasonable doubt of his guilt,” Birmingham resident Eileen Walbert wrote on December 1. “It would be a terrible thing if an innocent man were to die. I beg of you to spare his life. At this season of the year it would be a wonderful gift for us all.” On December 2, Wallace again heard Caliph’s plea for clemency. Following the hearing, he retired to his office to consider a fourteenth reprieve.

  Early the next morning he issued an executive order. “After oral hearing and careful consideration of the facts,” he wrote, Caliph Washington should not receive executive clemency. “Therefore, let the sentence of the court be executed as provided by law.” The final decision came over seven years since the incident with Cowboy Clark, five years since the last conviction, and twenty-three months since the appeal was denied. It followed thirteen reprieves from George Wallace.

  12

  CALLED BY LIGHTNING

  Federal judge Frank M. Johnson ordered Caliph Washington released from Kilby Prison in July 1965.

  CALIPH WASHINGTON KNEW the state was about to make an end to him. Once again, he took up residency in the tiny Bible Room. Guards shaved his head to prepare him to wear the death crown. “They took me in there,” Caliph said, “. . . and left me to pray. It felt pretty bad.” In just a few short hours, he would be clamped, capped, hooded, and electrocuted in the Alabama electric chair.

  It was December 3, 1964, when Caliph Washington received word of Wallace’s decision, and by that afternoon, family and friends gathered at the prison as Kilby officials made their final preparations. For spiritual support, Washington turned to Reverend Lucius C. Walker, a Baptist minister from Bessemer, and Sister Helen Cooley, his onetime Sunday school teacher. Cooley was an ordained leader in her Baptist church and a vigorous and unsung civil rights activist who worked closely with Asbury Howard. When the Washington family first moved to Bessemer in the 1940s, Sister Cooley and her husband James lived next door. An active member of New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, which the Washington children attended, she taught Bible lessons to Caliph and played a key role in the youngster’s spiritual formation. She encouraged Caliph as he responded to a revival preacher’s call for “sinners to repent” and walked the aisle to accept Jesus as his savior. When Caliph went to prison in 1957, she visited him often and offered spiritual guidance. “I never talked to him about what happened” with the police officer, Cooley said. “It didn’t matter. I told him to pray, and ask the Lord to take charge; I prayed with him and asked the Lord to be merciful.”

  But during those seven long years in prison, Caliph struggled with bitterness, anger, and depression. For a time, he believed, God had forgotten him, but the faith of those who surrounded him, and especially the devotion of Caliph’s mother, Aslee, never faded. As time slipped away that hollow December day, she expected another miracle. “I wait it out with Jesus,” she said. “God is able. He has been dated [for death] so many times. But God ain’t ready. When God ain’t ready, it ain’t gonna happen . . . Yes, Lord.”

  ATTORNEY FRED BLANTON was Caliph Washington’s last hope. On Thursday, December 3, 1964, while Caliph waited in the Bible Room, Blanton began a whirlwind of legal activity trying to prevent Washington’s execution. Thinking that he had exhausted all possible legal avenues at the state level, Blanton sought relief from the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, Northern Division, and Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr. A law school classmate and onetime friend of George Wallace, Johnson was a Republican from the piney hills of Winston County in north
western Alabama. Up in these isolated hills, farmers tilled their own soil and remained fiercely independent. On the eve of the Civil War, Winston residents rejected Alabama’s call for secession, declared neutrality in the coming war, and proclaimed themselves the “Free State of Winston,” although they remained under Alabama control and faced reprisals. After the war, Winston County became a Republican island in the sea of Alabama Democrats.

  Unlike those judges from the Black Belt counties who struggled with the contradictions of judicial principles and racial traditions, Frank Johnson was unwavering. “I didn’t have any ingrained racial prejudices that I had to cope with,” he once recalled. “That was one of the problems I didn’t have.” When asked what shaped his racial attitudes, Johnson simply and drily answered, “The law.”

  As a federal judge, the focused and serious-minded Johnson followed the letter of the law precisely and stared down lawyers in his courtroom as if he were “aiming down a rifle barrel.” He was never a crusading judge interested in social change, but his rulings on voting rights, prisons, desegregation, and education resulted in just that throughout Alabama.

  Early on the morning of December 3, Blanton filed petitions for a stay of execution and a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of Caliph Washington in Frank Johnson’s court. One of the cornerstones of personal liberty in the United States, habeas corpus, the Latin phrase for “that you have the body,” has its roots in English law as a way of providing relief from unlawful imprisonment of citizens. In his petition, Blanton argued that Caliph’s conviction, imprisonment, and death sentence were all violations of his constitutional rights.