John Louis Evans, III v. Robert G. Britton, Commissioner, Alabama Board of Corrections, and Joseph Oliver, Warden, Holman Prison

John Louis Evans, III, was convicted of capital murder by a jury and was sentenced to death in an Alabama state court. In his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition for habeas corpus relief, denied by the district court, 472 F. Supp. 707, he alleges that because the Alabama death penalty statute, Code of Ala. § 13-11-2 (1975), deprived him of due process of law and equal protection and constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the United States Constitution, his conviction must be reversed. The Alabama statute precludes the jury from considering lesser included offenses in capital cases;…