Alabama executes Michael Taylor for 1991 murders of Gadsden couple

Alabama executed Michael Shannon Taylor on Thursday for the 1991 murders of a Gadsden couple, ending a case that spanned more than three decades.

Taylor was executed by lethal injection at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. He was pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m., according to the Alabama attorney general’s office.

“Tonight is long overdue for the relatives and loved ones of Ivan and Lucille Moore. Thirty-five years ago, the Moores showed kindness to a young man in need and were callously murdered for it,” Attorney General Steve Marshall said.

Taylor was 19 when he killed the couple in their Gadsden home on November 4, 1991. According to the attorney general’s office, Taylor was absent without leave from the U.S. Navy and knew the couple.

Taylor went to the Moores’ home and asked Ivan Moore, 83, to use the telephone. Moore offered him something to eat, and Moore’s wife, Lucille, 79, came into the room to greet him.

Taylor attacked Ivan Moore with a barbell in the kitchen. When Lucille Moore found her husband injured on the floor and tried to help him, Taylor struck her repeatedly.

Taylor stole the couple’s wallets, purse, checkbook and 1986 Cadillac. He then traveled to Birmingham, where he cashed checks totaling $1,500 and bought clothing and jewelry.

A neighbor found the couple two days later. Ivan Moore had died, and Lucille Moore was unconscious. She died on November 10. Both suffered fatal blunt-force injuries to the head, according to the attorney general’s office.

In 1993, an Etowah County jury convicted Taylor of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of murdering two or more people in a single act. The jury unanimously recommended the death penalty, and the trial judge sentenced Taylor to death.

Taylor appealed in state and federal courts. A federal district court rejected his challenge to his conviction and death sentence in 2012, and the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision in 2015. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his case in November 2016.

Taylor selected nitrogen hypoxia as his method of execution in 2018, when Alabama lawmakers authorized the use of nitrogen gas for executions. The state switched to lethal injection after a federal judge ruled in June, in a separate case involving death row inmate Jeffery Lee, that Alabama’s nitrogen hypoxia protocol violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

Taylor challenged the state’s decision. His attorneys argued that lethal injection had become unavailable and that the 2018 law required the state to honor his choice of nitrogen hypoxia under those circumstances.

In the days before his execution, Taylor appealed an Etowah County Circuit Court ruling to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals and asked the Alabama Supreme Court to stay his execution. The Alabama Supreme Court denied his emergency request on November 4, a day before the scheduled execution. The state proceeded with lethal injection Thursday.

Marshall credited the attorney general’s Capital Litigation Division for its work on the case.

“No excuse can justify Taylor’s gruesome and brutal crimes, and a jury of his peers agreed with the prosecution. They swiftly found Taylor guilty on all counts and unanimously recommended death, and the trial judge accepted that recommendation,” Marshall said.