MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A man on Alabama’s death row wants his execution to go forward this week, saying he believes in an “eye for an eye.”
“The reason I dropped my appeals is I am guilty of murder,” James Osgood told The Associated Press in an telephone interview from prison. “I’m a firm believer in, like I said in court, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I took a life so mine was forfeited. I don’t believe in sitting here and wasting everybody’s time and everybody’s money.”
Osgood, 55, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection Thursday at his south Alabama prison. He’s one of only a small number of inmates on U.S. death rows to abandon their legal challenges. He also said he doesn’t want opponents of the death penalty protesting under his name.
Osgood was condemned to die for the 2010 killing of Tracy Lynn Brown in Chilton County. Prosecutors said Osgood cut her throat after he and his girlfriend sexually assaulted her. Osgood told the AP that he wants to apologize — to Brown’s family, and to his own — but he realizes the words are inadequate.
“I would like to say to the victim’s family, I apologize, Osgood said. “I’m not going to ask their forgiveness because I know they can’t give it.”
Osgood said he doesn’t use Brown’s name when discussing the murder because he doesn’t feel he has the right to do so.
“I regret taking her from them. I regret cutting her life short,” he said. “I regret that I took one of God’s children. And I regret the pain and suffering that I caused, not only for the victim and her family but to mine,” Osgood said.
Brown’s relatives supported the death sentence at trial. The AP was unable to reach member of Brown’s family for comment.
Osgood is one of two prisoners — along with Moises Sandoval Mendoza in Texas — scheduled to die this week amid a slight uptick in the pace of U.S. executions.
“I don’t want protesting for me. There is no need. I asked for this. If you want to protest against executions, that’s fine, just don’t use my name as your platform,” he said.
Brown was found dead in her home on Oct. 23, 2010, after her employer became concerned when she did not show up for work. She had been stabbed and her throat was cut, prosecutors said.
After Osgood was convicted in 2014 and sentenced to death, an appeals court threw out the sentence, ruling that a judge gave improper instructions to jurors. But as a new sentencing hearing began, Osgood asked for another death sentence.
“I knew they were going to come back with death. I didn’t want her family and my family to relive all that, just for the same thing. Why put them through that?”
Osgood has struggled to explain what he did. He said he had been drinking for 36 to 48 hours before the crime, but he said alcohol was not to blame for what he did. Asked what he would say to young people, Osgood said it would be don’t do anything to someone they wouldn’t want done to themselves.
Osgood ended up spending more than a decade on death row. He decided early on that he would let his appeals go for 10 years, but no longer. He also wanted to explore being a bone marrow donor for his sister, but then she chose other treatments, and Osgood figured the prison wouldn’t allow him to donate anyway. He dropped his appeals last summer, and asked for an execution date.
In a letter to his lawyer, he said he no longer feels as if he’s even existing. “I’m tired. I want to complete my sentence,” Osgood wrote.
Osgood said he thinks more death row inmates are thinking about dropping their appeals, because life without parole is scarier than death.
“The scary thing is having to stay here. Look what the world is coming to,” Osgood said.
