Nathaniel Woods, 42, is scheduled to be executed in Alabama on Thursday.
According to CNN, Woods, who was convicted of killing three police officers in 2004, has long insisted upon his innocence, with his attorneys emphasizing that another defendant had confessed to being the sole gunman involved in the incident.
Now Martin Luther King III is urging Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to put a stop to the execution and review Woods’ case.
“In just 2 days, your state, and the state I was born in, is set to kill a man who is very likely innocent,” MLK III wrote in a letter to Ivey. “Killing this African American man, whose case appears to have been strongly mishandled by the courts, could produce an irreversible injustice.”
King has added his voice dozens of other activists and supporters, pushing for a reconsideration of Woods case.
As ABC News notes, almost 70,000 people have signed a Change.org petition insisting that Woods is innocent.
After his conviction, Woods appealed his case, saying that he did not have adequate representation, adding that his lawyer at the time had told him that he could not be convicted of capital murder as an accomplice, and thus convincing him to turn down a 20-25 year sentence plea deal that prosecutors offered him.
His appeal was denied in the Alabama Supreme Court, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court.