Jakayla Williams is seeking to undo the guilty plea that sent her to prison for life in the 2023 death of her newborn son.

DOTHAN, Ala. — A guilty plea that appeared to bring a three-year capital murder case to an end is now under challenge after new attorneys for Jakayla Ashanti Williams alleged the court never formally resolved a question about her competency before she admitted killing her newborn son.

Williams, 21, pleaded guilty to capital murder Sept. 14 and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The plea was entered just as jury selection was about to begin in Houston County Circuit Court and removed the possibility that prosecutors could obtain a death sentence. But the finality of that agreement is now uncertain. Circuit Judge Henry D. “Butch” Binford has scheduled a Nov. 10 hearing after Williams sought to withdraw the plea and newly appointed lawyers raised questions about the procedures that preceded it.

Attorneys Manish Patel and Christopher Sledge argued in a filing reported this week that the court had not ruled Williams competent to stand trial after her competency had previously been questioned. They also contend that Binford did not advise her of a right to appeal. The claims have not yet resulted in the plea being set aside, and no court has ruled that the alleged procedural errors invalidate her conviction. WTVY reported that legal experts consulted by the station said the challenge could have merit, but the issue remains for the court to decide.

The new dispute developed only days after Williams entered the guilty plea. She submitted a handwritten motion asserting that her lawyers had pressured her to accept the deal, according to WTVY. Binford then appointed new attorneys to represent her. That claim contrasts with what occurred during the plea proceeding, when Williams assured the judge that she was entering the agreement freely. Her former attorneys, Aimee Cobb and Clay Wadsworth, did not comment to WTVY after the plea.

The September agreement had resolved a case in which Houston County District Attorney Russ Goodman intended to seek the death penalty. Under the deal, Williams admitted capital murder and received the other punishment available for the offense: life imprisonment without parole. Goodman said afterward that prosecutors were satisfied to obtain a conviction but described the outcome as somber, saying that no one had won. If Williams is eventually permitted to withdraw the plea, the capital prosecution could return to the posture it held before jury selection, potentially restoring the death penalty as a sentencing possibility if she were convicted at trial.

The criminal case began with a visit to Southeast Health in Dothan on Aug. 24, 2023. Police said Williams and members of her family were trying to locate a newborn whom Williams claimed she had left at the hospital after giving birth at her home Aug. 13. According to the Dothan Police Department, Williams said she had given the baby to a hospital employee because she did not want the child and believed raising a baby would cost too much money. Her relatives had not known she was pregnant or had given birth until the day before the hospital visit.

Investigators soon determined that Williams had not taken the child to Southeast Health, police said. Authorities reviewed the account she provided and questioned her again. Police said Williams then acknowledged that she had wrapped the newborn boy in a blanket and placed him in a trash dumpster at an apartment complex on the west side of Dothan. According to the department’s 2023 statement, Williams told investigators that the baby was still alive when she left him there. Police said she had no known connection with the apartment complex, and authorities did not determine publicly why she selected that location.

The dumpster was connected to a trash compactor, and its contents had been transported toward the city landfill. Investigators seized the receptacle and searched through the material. Police reported finding the remains of a newborn wrapped in a mattress protector inside a zipped duffel bag. The remains were sent to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences in Montgomery during the initial investigation. Williams, who was 18 at the time, was arrested and charged with capital murder. The allegations immediately placed her at risk of either life without parole or, if prosecutors pursued and obtained it, a death sentence.

The question of the infant’s condition became an issue well before the scheduled trial. Williams’ defense challenged the prosecution’s position that the child was alive when he was put into the dumpster. Her lawyers also raised Williams’ age, lack of a prior criminal record and mental health as significant issues. The case remained pending for years while her defense developed arguments involving her mental condition. In the days before trial, the defense continued to argue that her youth at the time of the killing and her emotional condition should weigh against capital punishment.

That history gives the latest competency challenge particular significance. Competency to stand trial concerns whether a defendant is able to understand the proceedings and assist in the defense, and Williams’ new lawyers are arguing that the question was left unresolved before the court accepted a plea that permanently surrendered her right to a trial. Their filing does not by itself establish that Williams was incompetent or that the plea must be withdrawn. Instead, it asks the court to address whether the necessary procedural determination occurred before the conviction was entered.

The dispute over the plea also revived tensions that were visible immediately after the September hearing. Andre Kincey, identified by WTVY as a member of Williams’ family, alleged that her lawyers had pressured her in the days leading to the plea and disputed the portrayal of Williams that emerged from the prosecution. Williams herself later raised coercion in her handwritten filing. Those allegations remain claims by Williams and her family; they have not been established as findings by the court, and her statements during the formal plea hearing indicated at the time that she was accepting the agreement voluntarily.

The case had consequences beyond the prosecution. Dothan officials moved in 2023 to expand safe-surrender options for newborns, although the city’s fire department had already been exploring the idea before Williams’ arrest. The city eventually installed Safe Haven Baby Boxes at fire stations. The Dothan Fire Department currently lists boxes at stations 1, 3 and 10. The secure devices allow an unharmed newborn to be surrendered anonymously and alert first responders so the child can be taken into care. Alabama law had expanded safe-haven options before Williams gave birth.

Those developments have remained part of the community context surrounding a case that began with a family searching for a child they believed had been safely surrendered. What appeared in September to be the last court proceeding instead became the start of another legal dispute. Williams’ guilty plea remains in place for now, as does the sentence requiring her to spend the rest of her life in prison without parole.

The next confirmed step is the Nov. 10 hearing before Binford. The court will have to consider the effort to withdraw Williams’ plea and the procedural issues raised by her new attorneys. Unless the judge grants relief, her capital murder conviction and life-without-parole sentence remain intact.

Author note: Last updated October 21, 2026.