State will not seek death penalty for Casey White, trial postponed

FLORENCE, Ala. (WAFF) - The state of Alabama will no longer be seeking the death penalty for a man who is charged with a 2015 murder and escaping from the Lauderdale County Jail. The trial date has also been postponed to 2023.

Casey White was in the Lauderdale County Jail for an alleged 2015 murder when he escaped in April. On Tuesday, White appeared in court for the first time since May.

During the hearing Tuesday, District Attorney, Chris Connolly stated that the state would no longer be seeking the death penalty for the alleged murder of Connie Ridgeway.

The defense said that it would not have enough time for a December trial and has asked for it to be moved to either May or June. A judge has since ruled that it would be postponed but no date has been released.

The District Attorney is asking for the felony murder case for the death of Vicky White to go on trial before the capital murder case for the death of Ridgeway.

White’s defense team said the delay of trial was good for their strategy.

“The state is not seeking the death penalty on the original capital murder case,” he said. “That was certainly good news for us. We count that as a major milestone in our work. That literally cuts our work in half as far as far as the case goes. At this point, we’re treating it as any other case.”

They said they will work diligently to have the best possible strategy prepared.

“We don’t want to rush things and just try to hurry things for the sake of hurrying,” he said. “We have things that have to happen to be done. We’ll work through all these cases methodically in a normal matter that we would handle any other case.”

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