Mercy for Mark

Why clemency

Four reasons for mercy.

Mark Jenkins was sentenced to death before the Supreme Court forbade executing people who are intellectually disabled; over the dissent of two jurors who voted for life in prison without parole; and by jurors who never heard about the horrors Mark had endured as a child. And Mark has transformed into a better man, one who lifts people up and takes great comfort in his Christian faith.

Learn about the reasons for clemency↓ Read Mark’s clemency petition

01. Intellectual disability

Mark Jenkins is on Alabama’s death row even though he is intellectually disabled.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional to execute an individual with intellectual disability. Governor Ivey must stop Alabama from doing so.

Mark is intellectually disabled and has been his entire life.

Even when Mark was a baby, his grandmother recognized that he seemed slow. He read at a third-grade level in fifth grade, and he stalled at that reading level well into his twenties. Throughout his life, he has been taken advantage of by others.

Based on extensive testing, a lengthy evaluation, voluminous records from Mark’s childhood, and more, neuropsychologist Robert Ouaou, Ph.D., diagnosed Mark with intellectual disability.

First page of the forensic neuropsychological assessment of Mark Jenkins by Robert H. Ouaou, Ph.D.
Read the report

The diagnosis

A serious neurodevelopmental condition

Intellectual disability is a serious and lifelong neurodevelopmental condition marked by significant limitations in a person’s intellectual functioning and adaptive functioning. Someone with intellectual disability struggles to learn, process information, and handle everyday living skills.

Select a finding above to see the corresponding part of Dr. Ouaou’s report.

Robert H. Ouaou, Ph.D., Forensic Neuropsychological Assessment of Mark Jenkins, May 3, 2023.

Atkins v. Virginia

Protecting constitutional rights

In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that executing an intellectually disabled person violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Mark has been diagnosed as intellectually disabled by an expert and has been seeking an opportunity to prove his disability in court. To date, no court has given him the chance.

Governor Ivey is not bound by court rules. Even if courts refuse to hear Mark’s evidence of intellectual disability, she can consider it and ensure that Alabama does not wrongfully execute an intellectually disabled man.

The Arc of Alabama has written to the Governor in support of Mark’s request for clemency.

Take actionAlabama’s leading disability rights organization on Mark
First page of the Supreme Court's decision in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002)
Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002). Read the decision.

02. The horrors of Mark’s childhood

The attorneys never told the jury about the violence and neglect Mark endured as a child and their lasting effects.

Sara Boyd, Ph.D., a board-certified forensic psychologist specializing in trauma, has said that Mark experienced some of the most horrific abuse she has ever seen.

Mark’s trial lawyers never investigated Mark’s childhood. Juries in death penalty cases must be allowed to consider this kind of evidence, which may offer a reason to vote for a life sentence. Mark’s jury heard none of it.

Learn about what Mark endured as a child and see contemporaneous records documenting his experience:

Read Mark’s story
Contemporaneous records, 1981–1983. Select any page to read it.

03. Non-unanimous jury

Mark Jenkins was sentenced to death even though two jurors voted for life without the possibility of parole.

Two jurors believed that Mark should get a sentence of life in prison without parole instead of the death penalty. Despite this non-unanimous verdict, Mark was sentenced to death.

This country has a long tradition of requiring a jury to be unanimous. When it comes to the death penalty, without agreement from all twelve jurors, the jury cannot channel the voice of the community. Doubt remains as to whether a person is the “worst of the worst”—the type of person for whom we reserve our harshest punishment.

Alabama is one of only two states in the country that allows a death sentence without a unanimous jury.

In nearly all states, Mark would have been sentenced to life. That is not what happened in Alabama.

Read Juror Richard Spiker’s letter to the Governor
Richard Spiker of St. Clair County, one of the jurors who voted for a life sentence at Mark’s sentencing trial, says that Mark’s death sentence still weighs heavily on him thirty-five years later.
Read the transcript

Richard Spiker. Governor Ivey, I’ve supported you both terms, and I was a juror on the Mark Jenkins capital murder case, and I’m asking you to give him life in prison.

On screen: In 1991, Mark Jenkins stood trial in St. Clair County for the murder of Tammy Hogeland. Only ten of the twelve jurors voted for the death penalty. Two voted for life. Even though the jury was not unanimous, Mark was sentenced to death. Richard Spiker was one of the jurors who voted for life without the possibility of parole.

Spiker. I mean, it brings up a lot of hurt, because I wasn’t proud when I walked out of that courthouse.

Interviewer. Why not?

A long pause.

Spiker. I don’t think he got the right verdict.

He stops, and gathers himself.

Spiker. Sorry.

04. Transformation

The man Alabama seeks to execute is not the same man it sentenced to death.

Mark has spent the past thirty-five years trying to become a better man than the one who first set foot in Holman Prison, and through those efforts—with support from those around him, and with strength from his Christian faith—he has transformed himself into a new man.

Growth

Mark was twenty-one at the time of the offense. He is fifty-nine now. The man who walked into Holman in 1991 no longer exists, and the people who have spent the most time with him over the past thirty-five years are asking the Governor to spare him.

Dr. Sara Boyd completed a psychological evaluation of Mark. She assessed Mark’s trauma history, his psychological status in late adolescence, his current psychological status, and his risk of future violence.

Dr. Boyd offered a holistic endorsement of Mark’s transformation, saying that Mark is at very low risk of violence in the prison or anywhere else. Despite Mark’s severe trauma history, he has a “striking” absence of dysregulated anger and bitterness, and instead has notably “prosocial” personal values. Mark’s adaptation to his intellectual disability and trauma symptoms has included developing a “highly agreeable (i.e., appeasing), interpersonally submissive, and compliant attitude.” Dr. Boyd described how Mark has matured developmentally, developed psychologically, and is no longer susceptible to the negative influences that compromised his decision-making before his incarceration.

First page of the psychological evaluation of Mark Jenkins by Sara E. Boyd, Ph.D.
Sara E. Boyd, Ph.D., ABPP, Psychological Evaluation of Mark Jenkins, September 4, 2026.
Read the report

Remorse

“[I] finally stood up and said, ‘I need to take responsibility for my actions as a man.’ I took the life of a beautiful person. . . . I took a life and I cannot give it back.”

Mark’s response when Dr. Boyd asked Mark about how he has changed since his arrest. Dr. Boyd also wrote that Mark has a depth of remorse that is “highly unusual.”

Faith

Mark’s greatest source of strength over his decades of incarceration has been his faith. Shortly after his arrest, he was baptized in the county jail. At that moment, he accepted Jesus into his life and accepted God’s grace for himself. Over the course of his imprisonment, Mark has grown in his Christian faith and spreads Jesus’ love in the ways he can.

As Dr. Boyd wrote, Mark “tries to model for others how he hopes to be treated himself, and he has tried to construct healthy and positive relationships with people whose values he admires and whose connections he values.”

“In the years since Mark gave his life to Christ, I saw a changed man in behavior, humility, as well as his growing desire to know more about Christ… Armed with a desire to become more than a taker, he has been a contributor to the betterment of his carceral community.”

A former prison chaplain