Kim Kardashian West pleads with followers to save man facing execution on death row

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Kim Kardashian West has announced her support for a man facing execution in Alabama and has called for officials to stay the execution.

Posting on Twitter, the reality TV star asked her 63.7 million followers to join a coalition calling for Nathaniel Woods to be saved.

The tweet read: #NathanielWoods is scheduled to be executed in Alabama TONIGHT for murders he did NOT commit. Join the broad coalition- including members of the jury and relatives of the victims – in urging @GovernorKayIvey and @AGSteveMarshall to stay Nate’s execution.

The state of Alabama is scheduled to execute Woods for capital murder in a case in which even prosecutors acknowledge that he did not kill the three victims.

The group referenced in Kardashian West’s tweet is being led by family members is asking the governor for an eleventh hour stay of execution.

The tweet tags both Alabama attorney general Steve Marshall governor Kay Ivey.

In 2005 Mr Woods was found guilty for his role in the 2004 deaths of three police officers in Birmingham, Alabama, and the attempted murder of a fourth. Another man, Kerry Spencer, was also convicted of the crime and is also on death row.

Kardashian West also retweeted a post from an account @FreeRodneyReed again urging people to call Alabama Governor Kay Ivey at 334-242-7100.

Prosecutors say, Mr Woods drew the four officers to an apartment where he and Spencer sold crack cocaine. It was there that Spencer, not Woods, shot the officers.

Officers Carlos Owen, Harley Chisholm III and Charles Bennett were killed, and officer Michael Collins was wounded.

On Wednesday, Mr Woods’ father and sister came to the state Capitol in Montgomery to proclaim his innocence.

Speaking outside the Capitol, Pamela Woods said: “We really just want people to see that he really is innocent, that he didn’t have anything to do with the murders of those officers.”

“We do feel really bad for what happened that day. We don’t wish that on anyone, for their family to have to deal with that. It was very unfortunate that the shooter did what he did. But the main point is, is that Nathaniel had no parts in those actions of another man, Kerry Spencer.”

Upon his conviction, two jurors voted against applying the death penalty to Mr Woods’ conviction, but their objection was not enough as Alabama is unique in not requiring a unanimous verdict for a death sentence.

The governor is yet to respond to the family nor Mr King, but attorney general Steve Marshall issued a statement concerning the calls to halt the execution.

Said Mr Marshall: “There is a last-minute movement afoot to ‘save’ cop-killer Nathaniel Woods from his just punishment. The message of that movement is encapsulated by the headline of a press release sent out today, which declared: ‘Surrendered and Innocent Man Set to Die.’ That headline contains two falsehoods and one truth. The falsehoods are the descriptors ‘surrendered’ and ‘innocent’: neither apply whatsoever to Nathaniel Woods, whose actions directly caused the deaths of three policemen and injury to another.”

He continued: “The truth is ‘set to die’: Nathaniel Woods was correctly found guilty and sentenced to death by a jury of his peers, and that sentence is set to be carried out tomorrow; that is, justice is set to be carried out tomorrow. The only injustice in the case of Nathaniel Woods is that which was inflicted on those four policemen that terrible day in 2004.”

On Monday a stay of execution was denied by US District Judge Emily Marks.

Mr Woods is set to die at 6pm local time on Thursday by lethal injection. He is the first person scheduled for execution in Alabama this year, and the 67th since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.