The Foundation for Moral Law, the legal organization led by former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, today filed a federal court petition challenging the life sentence of a man for stealing a nail gun from Lowe’s in Foley in 2012.
The petition, filed in U.S. District Court in the Southern Division of Alabama, says Willie Lee Conner was guilty of shoplifting the $250 gun, a misdemeanor, but not first-degree robbery, a Class A felony, as a jury found.
Conner was not armed when he was caught stealing the nail gun, the petition says. After store security caught him outside the store, Conner reached into his pants to retrieve the stolen nail gun and said, “I have a gun,” the petition says. The Lowe’s employees wrestled Conner to the ground. A search found he had a small pocket knife and the nail gun. He was escorted to the store office where he signed a statement admitting to the theft, the petition says.
The jury convicted him of first-degree robbery when the charge should have been a misdemeanor level of theft of property, the petition says.
Conner had three prior felony convictions, all for theft. After the robbery conviction, the judge sentenced him in 2013 to life with the possibility of parole under the state’s Habitual Offender Act. The petition says that under the Habitual Offender Act, the judge’s only options for sentencing were life or life without parole.
Conner has appealed several times. In August, the Alabama Supreme Court denied a request to review the case, exhausting Conner’s state court appeals.
In the federal petition, Foundation of Moral Law attorney Matthew Clark wrote that Conner’s sentence violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments because it is “grossly disproportionate” to the crime.
The case came before the Alabama Supreme Court twice when Moore was chief justice, in 2014 and 2016. Both times, the justices denied Conner’s appeal. Moore dissented both times. Clark was one of Moore’s staff attorneys at the time.
Conner, 55, is an inmate at the Loxley community work center.
This story was edited at 7:35 p.m. to add the first name of Willie Lee Conner.