EJI believes that Alabama needs a penniless national defense system and adequate compensation for court-appointed lawyers to ensure that the poor receive quality legal representation at all stages of the critical process. A “yes” vote suggests that the governor must inform the attorney general and the victim`s family before granting a commutation or pardon of a death sentence. All states where the death penalty has been imposed provide legal advice for post-conviction proceedings, with the exception of Alabama.5 Maples v. Thomas, 565 U.S. 266 (2012). Until 2018, Alabama did not provide legal assistance for the preparation and filing of claims after sentencing. Death row inmates cannot investigate and discover new evidence from their cells. And it is so difficult to meet complex legal and technical requirements that post-conviction motions filed without the assistance of a lawyer are usually procedurally time-barred, even if they contain valid claims. The sister of death row inmate Joe Nathan James Jr. called for an investigation into his botched execution after a spokesperson for the Alabama Department of Corrections said ADOC had not …
Alabama`s death penalty system has not kept pace with reform in the rest of the United States. Under state law, prosecutors are not required to prove that a defendant was at least 18 years old at the time of the crime. State law also does not provide for protection against the execution of persons with intellectual disabilities. The U.S. Supreme Court precedent is the only body that prevents executions of defendants with IQs below 70. 1972 – The Supreme Court overturns the death penalty in Furman v. Georgia. A federal district court has ordered Alabama state officials to retain evidence related to the state`s failed attempt to execute death row inmate Alan Miller on September 22, 2022. The botched execution attempt, Alabama`s third since 2018, took place.
Anthony Ray Hinton spent 30 years on Alabama death row simply because the state claimed that a revolver taken from his mother`s home was the weapon used in both murders and a third uncharged crime. Prosecutors refused to reinvestigate the case after EJI proved the revolver could not be combined with criminal evidence, and it took another 12 years of litigation and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling to finally secure his release. Alabama stands out among the states applying the death penalty by failing to provide adequate legal assistance to those facing the death penalty in court or on appeal. Compensation rates are too low and there is no national public defence system. From 1927 to 1976, there were 153 executions. Of these, 126 were African Americans, 27 Caucasians. 3 were women. Alabama is the only state whose anti-death penalty organization Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty was founded in 1989 by death row inmates. The president and board of directors are on death row in Holman. Since 1976, Alabama judges have overturned jury verdicts 112 times.
The override law gave judges the power to overturn life or death sentences, but 91 percent of waivers overturned jury verdicts of life imprisonment to impose the death penalty. Alabama has set an execution date for a death row prisoner for November 17, 2022, whose jury voted 11-1 to spare his life. On September 30, 2022, barely a week after Walter McMillian, who is black, failed attempt to inject him, was sentenced to death for the murder of a young white woman who worked as an employee in a dry cleaning shop in Monroeville, Alabama. The security forces took him to death row before his trial, which lasted less than two days. The jury ignored several alibi witnesses who were black and said McMillian was attending a church event at the time of the crime. And the judge ignored the jury`s life verdict and sentenced McMillian to death. He was released after the IJI showed that state witnesses lied on the witness stand and that the prosecution illegally suppressed exculpatory evidence. People sentenced to death who lose their direct appeal can file a petition in state court after conviction – which is the only way to argue that the prosecutor was ineffective, that the prosecutor concealed favorable evidence, or that jurors committed wrongdoing.
These allegations require new evidence that is not in the trial record. Judge Override contributed significantly to Alabama`s high death penalty rate. Nearly 20 per cent of those sentenced to death were sentenced to death by judicial annulment. Alabama should reduce and eliminate the unequal and unjust practices of the state`s death penalty system and eventually abolish the death penalty altogether. The people of Alabama deserve a fair and impartial justice system, and these death penalty reforms would be steps toward a more just state. From 1983 to October 24, 2022, Alabama executed 70 people. [10] As of June 2018, Alabama had 175 inmates on death row, the 4th highest number in the United States. [18] One governor has commuted only one death sentence since 1976: outgoing Governor Fob James commuted Judith Ann Neelley`s death sentence to life in prison without parole in January 1999. [19] Alabama still has one of the highest per capita execution rates in the country. With 70 executions and nine discharges since 1976, Alabama has a shocking error rate: out of eight executions, one has been exonerated.
Since 2010, Alabama has executed two people who dropped their appeals despite suffering from mental illness, three people whose judges sentenced them to death after the jury voted for life imprisonment, and two men executed despite signs of mental retardation that should have prevented their execution.