Aaniyah Nowden was convicted of capital murder after jurors rejected her self-defense claim in the death of Justina Wallace.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — A Jefferson County judge sentenced 24-year-old Aaniyah Nowden to life in prison without parole after a jury convicted her of capital murder in the 2023 shooting death of pregnant mother Justina Wallace.

The sentence closed a case that prosecutors had treated as a death-penalty matter and that drew attention because both women were pregnant when the shooting happened. Wallace, 36, was holding her toddler daughter at a Birmingham home when she was shot. The child’s father was also the father of Nowden’s unborn child, a fact that became central to the trial record but did not settle the still-unclear motive.

The shooting happened July 7, 2023, at a home on the 3200 block of 17th Avenue North in Birmingham. Wallace had gone to the home, where an argument developed involving Wallace, Nowden and the man connected to both women, according to court testimony summarized in local reports. Wallace was several months pregnant. Nowden was eight months pregnant. Two of Wallace’s sons were nearby, and Wallace had her toddler daughter in her arms when Nowden approached with a gun and fired. Wallace was taken to a hospital and died the next day. Her unborn child also did not survive.

Jurors heard two sharply different accounts of those moments. Nowden testified that she acted in self-defense. Her attorneys described Wallace as aggressive and belligerent during the encounter. Prosecutors said the video evidence and witness accounts showed something different. Deputy District Attorney Jason Wilson told jurors that Wallace had “no weapon” and was not attacking Nowden when the shot was fired. Prosecutors said the presence of the child in Wallace’s arms made the shooting even more stark because Wallace was not in a position to pose the threat Nowden claimed.

The case began with three capital murder counts after Birmingham police announced Nowden’s arrest in the summer of 2023. The charges reflected the death of Wallace, the death of Wallace’s unborn child and the circumstances of the shooting in front of children. By the end of trial, jurors convicted Nowden on one capital murder count and dismissed two others. That verdict still carried the harshest nondeath sentence available in the case, life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The penalty phase arrived after an earlier attempt to try the case collapsed. Nowden’s first trial ended in a mistrial in May because too few jurors remained after both sides struck members of the jury pool. A second jury was seated, heard the evidence and returned a guilty verdict May 28. The sentence followed May 29. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty, but the final judgment left Nowden imprisoned for life and ended the trial stage without a death sentence.

The trial placed heavy weight on what jurors could see and hear from the day of the shooting. Reports from the courtroom said a cellphone video captured parts of the confrontation. The defense used the argument before the gunfire to support Nowden’s self-defense claim. Prosecutors used the same setting to argue that Wallace was unarmed, holding a child and not advancing in a way that justified deadly force. The jury’s verdict showed it accepted the state’s central claim that the shooting was murder, not lawful self-defense.

Wallace was a mother of five. Two of her children were close enough to see or hear the confrontation unfold, and her toddler daughter was in her arms when she was shot. The toddler, identified in court discussion as Sky, survived the shooting but lost her mother. The case also left Nowden’s child without her mother at home, because Nowden gave birth after the shooting while she was already in custody. The two children linked to the same father became part of the case’s painful background, though no court finding named that relationship as a proven motive.

Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr said after the verdict that the work of jurors, prosecutors and law enforcement brought the case to a close, but he added that there were “no winners” in what happened. Carr’s statement cast the case as a warning about violent acts driven by emotion. Prosecutors framed the shooting as a choice that changed two families at once. The defense had framed it as a sudden confrontation that Nowden believed put her in danger. The jury resolved that dispute against Nowden.

Nowden’s sentence means she is not eligible for parole under the judgment entered in Jefferson County court. Any further step would come through post-trial motions or an appeal, which are common after capital murder convictions but had not changed the outcome by the time the sentence was reported. The case now moves from trial court verdict to the slower record-review phase that often follows serious felony convictions.

Nowden remains sentenced to life without parole for Wallace’s killing. The next public milestone would be any appeal filing, post-trial ruling or correction to the court record in Jefferson County.

Author note: Last updated June 29, 2026.