Eight Mile woman convicted of murder sentenced to five years behind bars

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - An Eight Mile woman convicted of murder in June will serve five years behind bars, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Mobile County Presiding Circuit Judge Wesley Pipes sentenced Amy Simmons Palmer, 37, to 20 years in prison but suspended all but five years of that. She will serve a longer sentence than either of her two co-defendants – including the man who admitted pulling the trigger.

Prosecutors presented evidence that Palmer aided and abetted her common-law husband, Samuel Nichols, during a confrontation with Randall Taylor in March 2020 at a landfill off of Henry Road in Eight Mile.

Bucky Thomas, Palmer’s lawyer, said Nichols and the victim had bad blood and that the shooting followed an argument. But he said his client was not armed and did not go to the landfill with any kind of plan to kill somebody.

“It’s uncontroverted that Amy, my client, was not the shooter in this case,” he said. “There was a co-defendant that was, in fact, the shooter in this. And the state pursued a theory of accomplice liability, or complicity, as to the theory because she was present.”

Palmer was the only one of four defendants whose case went to trial. Nichols pleaded guilty last year to manslaughter, and the judge sentenced him to 20 years, but he suspended all but three years, to be served in the Mobile County Community Punishment and Corrections Program, followed by one year under the supervision of the Mobile Community Corrections program.

Co-defendant Jacob Dale Weaver pleaded guilty to second-degree assault and got a seven-year sentence, with all but 2½ years suspended.

The judge last month granted the prosecution’s request to drop charges against a fourth defendant, Shannon Marie Lewis.

Thomas said it was a “clean” trial but added his plans to appeal. He said prosecutors accused Palmer of abetting the murder through her words.

“There was a witness that took the stand that stated that she said some words of encouragement that led to the shooting, or during the shooting,” he said. “And you know, even a minute thing like that could be pursued under that theory, and I would surmise that’s kind of what the jury held on to.”