The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal by Alabama Death Row inmate Keith Gavin.  He had filed a request for a review of the case in February of last year (2016).

Gavin was convicted of the 1998 murder and robbery of William Clinton Clayton, Jr. in front of the Regions Bank in downtown Centre. 

Clayton, who worked as a contract courier for Corporate Express Delivery Systems Inc. was shot and killed while sitting in a company van outside the bank after finishing his deliveries for the day.  He had reportedly stopped to get money from the ATM in order to take his wife to dinner.

Two separate eyewitnesses identified Gavin as the shooter – including his cousin, DeWayne Meeks – who was an employee with the Illinois Department of Corrections.  Gavin also fired shots at an investigator as he fled the scene. 

The Murder charge was a Capital offense because the crime was actually committed during the course of a robbery in the first degree – and because he’d been convicted of murder less than 20 years earlier. 

An Attempted Murder charge was added for firing at law enforcement while running away.

The murder in Centre took place less than three months after Gavin had been released from prison after serving 16 years for the shooting death of an unarmed man in Chicago.

A Cherokee County jury recommended by a vote of 10 to 2 that Gavin be sentenced to death and according to court records the judge accepted the jury’s recommendation.

(al.com/www.al.com)