09/28/02

Circuit Judge Alfred Bahakel sentenced Death Row inmate Taurus Carroll to life in prison without parole Friday after the Alabama Supreme Court overturned the death sentence Bahakel gave Carroll in 1997.

The justices ruled in July that Bahakel did not give adequate weight to mitigating circumstances when he sentenced Carroll to death, ignoring a jury's 10-2 recommendation for life in prison. The justices also said the death sentence was "excessive and disproportionate," and ordered Bahakel to resentence Carroll to life in prison without parole.

Carroll, convicted of killing Betty Long during a 1995 Kingston laundry robbery, showed no emotion in court as the judge resentenced him. However, his family expressed relief, with at least two saying, ``Thank you, Jesus," in hushed tones at the hearing.

"I hate that about the Long family, but I do thank God that (Carroll) has a chance to turn his life around and give his life to the Lord," Teresa McLemore, Carroll's aunt, said after the hearing. "He is also sorry about the incident that happened. He does have remorse about that."

Prosecutor Mike Anderton argued at Carroll's 1997 trial that Carroll should receive the death penalty.

"I feel like it was a death penalty case but this court has ruled otherwise," Anderton said after the hearing. "We have to go with what they ordered."

Anderton said Long was killed for no reason she offered no resistance during the heist but was shot anyway in the abdomen in front of her daughter. Ninety dollars was taken, along with the daughter's necklace, Anderton said.

Long's family did not attend the hearing. Her husband had asked Bahakel in 1997 to spare Carroll's life so that everyday Carroll could remember what he did.

A second defendant, Mack Dailey, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for Long's death. Dailey was 15 when the killing occurred and was not eligible for the death penalty because of his age. Carroll was 17.

"I'm very pleased that Taurus Carroll is no longer a dead man walking," said Carroll's defense lawyer, Joe W. Morgan III.