A second jury convicted Aaniyah Nowden after the first trial failed during jury selection.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — A capital murder case that first stalled over jury selection ended weeks later with Aaniyah Nowden sentenced to life without parole for killing pregnant mother Justina Wallace.
The path to the verdict was unusually uneven. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty, and the first trial could not proceed because too few jurors remained after both sides struck potential panel members. The court seated a new jury in May. That second jury heard testimony about a fatal July 2023 shooting, rejected Nowden’s self-defense claim and convicted her on one capital murder count.
The failed first trial mattered because it showed the difficulty of trying a case with severe charges and emotionally heavy facts. The defendant was pregnant when the shooting happened. The victim was pregnant too. Wallace’s toddler was in her arms, two of her sons were nearby, and the same man had fathered Wallace’s toddler and Nowden’s unborn child. Those facts were widely reported before the retrial, making jury selection a key step in finding people who could hear the evidence and follow the law.
Once the second trial began, the case returned to the events of July 7, 2023. Wallace, 36, went to a home on the 3200 block of 17th Avenue North in Birmingham. An argument followed among Wallace, Nowden and the man connected to both women. Nowden was eight months pregnant. Wallace was several months pregnant. Wallace was holding her toddler daughter when Nowden fired a gun. Wallace was taken to a hospital and died July 8. The unborn child Wallace was carrying did not survive.
The prosecution built its case around vulnerability and the absence of an immediate threat. Deputy District Attorney Jason Wilson told jurors that Wallace had “no gun.” Prosecutors said the victim was carrying a child, not attacking Nowden. They also pointed to cellphone video that reportedly captured part of the confrontation. The video placed jurors close to the scene, but the central question remained legal rather than technical: whether Nowden reasonably faced danger that justified deadly force.
The defense presented the shooting as self-defense. Nowden testified in her own favor and said she acted because she feared Wallace. Her attorneys described Wallace as aggressive and belligerent, asking jurors to consider the pressure and fear inside the confrontation rather than only the final seconds. The defense had to overcome the image of Wallace holding a toddler while unarmed. Jurors ultimately found the state’s version stronger and returned a guilty verdict May 28.
The indictment began with three capital murder counts. Jurors dismissed two counts, an important distinction in a case where the charge list carried more than one legal theory. The remaining conviction still exposed Nowden to the gravest penalties. Prosecutors had pursued death, but the court imposed life in prison without the possibility of parole on May 29. The sentence gave the case a final trial-court result without execution, while preserving the severity of a capital murder judgment.
Nowden was 24 when sentenced. She had given birth while in custody after the shooting, meaning the criminal case also separated her child from her outside the jail and prison system. Wallace’s five children were left without their mother. Reports after the killing described family members trying to support the children, including the toddler whose birthday became a painful family marker soon after Wallace died. The court process could punish the crime, but it could not repair those losses.
Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr said after the verdict that there were “no winners” in the case. He credited jurors, prosecutors and law enforcement, then pointed to the broader danger of violent emotional acts. The statement fit the prosecution’s account of the case as one in which a dispute became deadly because a gun was used. It also marked the public close of a case that had moved from a residential street to a capital courtroom over nearly three years.
The Norwood-area setting remained part of the case’s impact. The shooting happened in a home environment, not during a robbery, traffic stop or public attack by strangers. The people involved knew one another through family ties and a shared partner. That context made the case feel less like a random crime and more like a private conflict that spilled into irreversible violence. Prosecutors did not have to prove every private motive, but they showed enough for jurors to convict Nowden of murder.
The next phase is narrower than the trial. Post-trial motions and appeals, if filed, would examine legal issues such as jury selection, instructions, evidence rulings or whether the conviction was supported by the record. They would not be a new trial unless a reviewing court found grounds to disturb the verdict. For now, the sentence entered in Jefferson County controls Nowden’s future and leaves the case listed as a capital murder conviction.
As of June 29, 2026, Nowden’s life-without-parole sentence remains in place. Any future update is expected to come from appellate filings or Jefferson County court records.
Author note: Last updated June 29, 2026.