Alabama is the only state in the country that allows its judges to override juries to give criminals the death penalty instead of a life sentence. That 1976 policy might soon go by the wayside under legislation moving through the statehouse to rescind a judge’s ability to overrule a jury recommendation.
Republican state Sen. Dick Brewbaker said he supports the death penalty, but sponsored his bill to reform a policy that he says is used much more often when judges are up for re-election since many Alabamans support the death penalty.
Both his legislation — the Capital Cases, Sentencing, Court Prohibited from Overriding Jury Verdict bill — and a similar measure from Democratic Rep. Chris England are in committee. While a judge could give someone who has received the death penalty a life sentence instead, the policy is more often used in favor of capital punishment.
“Anybody who’s ever watched any politician, whether it’s in the major leagues of politicians or U.S. Senate, or the single leagues like Alabama state Senate — elected officials behave differently in election years, and I don’t think it’s shocking that when you apply that to the judicial system that it just doesn’t seem to work out very well,” Brewbaker said.
Alabama has executed 58 people since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, the seventh-most in the country, according to DeathPenaltyInfo.org. Texas, which ranks first, had executed 540 through Feb. 1. However, Alabama has the highest per capita rate, partially because of its relatively small population, but also because judges can overrule juries with harsher punishments, according to supporters of eliminating the policy.
Judges have overriden jury verdicts to issue the dealth penalty 107 times since 1976, according to the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit working to end mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the U.S. The reverse has happened 11 times. Currently, 183 people are on death row, according to the state’s website.
“Judge override in Alabama capital cases has made the death penalty more political, less fair and unnecessarily added people to death row,” said the group’s executive director, Bryan Stevenson, whose group supports the House and Senate bills. “If Alabama jurors who believe in the death penalty conclude that life imprisonment without parole is the most appropriate punishment for someone convicted of murder, our courts should respect that.”
The correlation between higher rates of judicially imposed capital punishment and election years does not mean elected officials are “bad people,” Brewbaker said, adding that he has received positive feedback from judges.
“Every judge who has called me since has been in favor of getting rid of it. I think they realize they are put under political pressure in election years, especially on a very public case to use this power if the jury doesn’t invoke the death penalty in some capital cases, and they know this pressure is not good for the judicial system,” Brewbaker said.
Steve Marshall, Alabama’s Republican attorney general, opposes the bill. Thomas Govan, the state deputy attorney general for capital litigation, spoke against the bill during a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, though Marshall’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
“In Alabama, in our criminal justice system, we trust our judges to make hard sentencing decisions in any case,” Govan said.
Historically, Republicans have been staunch death penalty supporters. But a November poll by Pew Research Center concluded the death penalty was no longer supported by the majority of Americans. Republican support has dropped over the past two decades from 87 percent to 72 percent.
“There are so many conservatives who don’t support the death penalty anymore,” said Heather Beaudoin, national coordinator for Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty.
Aside from shifting public opinion, Beaudoin pointed to the financial cost of the death penalty. While keeping prisoners locked up for life incurs considerable costs, she said the automatic appeals programs for death row inmates is expensive and can be “incredibly harmful to victims’ families” who have to relive the ordeal.
If the bill passes, Brewbaker said he has additional plans “to strengthen the integrity of the death penalty statute in Alabama.”
“If the time limit on appeals has run and new evidence presents itself that even exonerates a convicted person, there’s no way to get it in front of a court,” Brewbaker listed as one thing he wants to change.
He also wants to ensure that poor death row inmates, for whom the state currently does not provide any legal aid, “have access to very high-quality legal representation.”
