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Alabama is set to execute a man Thursday evening after he volunteered to die for his crimes.

James Osgood is set to be executed at 6 p.m. at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, just miles from the Florida state line. He will be put to death using the state’s three-drug lethal injection method, after he declined to choose death by nitrogen gas when Alabama allowed that swap in 2018.

Barring any last-minute interventions, Osgood will walk into the execution chamber having volunteered to die. He’s been on Alabama’s Death Row for over 10 years for the rape and slaying of Tracy Lynn Brown.

The 55-year-old Shelby County man was convicted of murder and a jury unanimously voted for him to die in 2014. But years later, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals reversed his sentences on a procedural error and sent the case back to a Chilton County judge.

During a new penalty-phase hearing, Osgood said he didn’t want a jury to decide his fate and asked the judge to return him to death row.

Ahead of his scheduled execution, Osgood asked there be no petitions for clemency on his behalf and no requests to the governor to spare his life, according to Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty Executive Director Esther Brown.

He also asked there be no protests against his execution.

“It’s his decision,” Brown said. “I don’t think he wants us to make excuses for him, I don’t think that is how he sees it… he feels that what he did was wrong and that its just that, a life for a life.”

The case

At the 2018 resentencing, Chilton County Circuit Judge Sibley Reynolds asked Osgood to explain why he was forgoing a jury deciding his penalty.

“I’ve always been a firm believer on an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, life for a life. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. Okay. I screwed up. I deserve what I was given,” Osgood told the judge, according to court records.

“When I was told by the appeal court that this was coming back for a resentence, I was worried because my worry was the jury would come back with a life without [parole], and I didn’t want that. I remember when I was sentenced the things you told me, the manner in which you told me. So I took it that if I put it in your hands again, I would get the same sentence which would be death.”

The judge replied: “Is that what you are knowingly asking me for?”

According to court records, several mitigating factors were brought up at Osgood’s first penalty phase, which were meant to give jurors a look into Osgood’s life before the crime. Osgood had a “poor family life,” according to appellate court records, and was sexually abused as a child. He also fathered a child when he was 14 with a woman ten years his senior. A doctor also testified that Osgood’s brain might have not developed properly due to malnutrition from when he was a baby.

Osgood was originally convicted in 2014. A jury took less than an hour to find him guilty of capital murder.

At the second sentencing, the victim’s sister spoke: “This coming back here has been such a disservice to our ongoing fight for Tracy. It has been a disservice for proper closure and what we have been through to have to come back today,” she said, according to court records.

“The focus should never, never be on minimizing the actions and the crime that that man did. He took the life of Tracy. He isn’t embracing accountability. That I know. This isn’t about him being accountable. He is looking to escape his punishment. That is my opinion. He’s a monster and his plans for killing Tracy were horrendous and torturous. For his actions, in my opinion, he deserves the death penalty. No mercy. I feel this is just punishment.”

The crime

The judge’s original sentencing order laid out the crime.

Tracy Lynn Brown got a ride on her off day to pick up her paycheck on Oct. 13, 2010 with her cousin, Tonya Vandyke and Vandyke’s boyfriend, Osgood. The three did a few other errands and returned to the trailer where Brown lived.

When they got inside, Osgood attacked Brown and dragged her to the bedroom. He raped Brown, and ordered Vandyke to hold Brown at gunpoint. Brown tried to escape at one point, but Osgood grabbed her and continued to rape her.

At some point during the rapes, court records state that Osgood slit Brown’s throat from behind. He then stabbed her twice in the back.

Brown’s body was found later by her landlord.

Osgood was identified as a suspect, along with his girlfriend, and was taken into custody. He confessed to police.

According to an earlier appeal from Osgood, he and Vandyke were “swingers who had sexual encounters with people outside their relationship,” and wanted to have sex with Brown. His lawyers described the situation as a consensual sexual encounter “that quickly spun out of control” and left Brown dead.

His appellate lawyers argued in 2022 that Osgood was encouraged by previous lawyers to waive his jury resentencing after he was frustrated with the way things were going. They described his “horrific abuse as a child,” and noted several ex-girlfriends who wanted to testify that Osgood was always a good man towards them.

Vandyke pleaded guilty to capital murder and was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Scheduled execution

Unlike most Alabama Death Row inmates, going into his execution day Osgood does not have any pending appeals and is not waiting on a court to decide his fate.

Brown, a longtime activist against capital punishment, said the situation is complicated. “As a death row organization, we do need to respect somebody’s wishes” she said. “As an anti-death penalty organization, we are against all killing.”

Brown said she believes all lives are sacred.

“He did decide to give up his petitions and that is his right to do. And we respect that.”