A Michigan man on death row in Alabama is asking Governor Gretchen Whitmer for a lifeline.
Demetrius Terrence Frazier, 52, is scheduled to be executed Feb. 6 for the 1991 murder and rape of Pauline Brown in Birmingham, Alabama.
Frazier’s attorneys claim he should have never been extradited to Alabama and should be sent back to Michigan prison.
Frazier was serving a life sentence in Michigan for another crime when he was extradited to Alabama for the murder charge and sentenced to death.
Death Penalty Action, an organization against the death penalty, has been pleading Frazier’s case and started an online petition.
“A previous governor came up with some arrangement with the Alabama governor and transferred (Frazier) back down to Alabama, and we think that’s counter actually to Michigan policy,” Death Penalty Action Executive Director Abraham Bonowitz said.
Michigan outlawed the death penalty, which is why Bonowitz believes the state should not have agreed to extradite him to Alabama, where the death penalty is legal.
“We’re asking Governor Whitmer to order him back,” Bonowitz said. “Let him serve his time out in Michigan and uphold Michigan values.”
The Michigan Attorney General’s Office ruled that the extradition was legal.
“The question before our office was not on if we should intervene or not, but whether that transfer was appropriate and legal under Michigan law, which we determined it was. Outside of that, we do not intervene in other state’s criminal matters,” a spokesperson for Attorney General Dana Nessel said.
As Frazier’s team continued to pressure Governor Whitmer, a legal expert told Local 4 it was unlikely she would intervene.
“We don’t know right now whether this will be successful, but it doesn’t appear to be because on both sides, both in Michigan and in Alabama, both of the governments are saying we’re not seeing a valid legal argument here,” former US Attorney Matthew Schneider said. “So, it doesn’t look very promising in this case.”