The Alabama House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday rejected a bill that would have required courts to resentence people sentenced to death by judges over a jury’s recommendation of life in prison.
The bill was rejected on a party line vote, with nine Republicans voting against it, and four Democrats voting for it.
The Legislature passed a bill in 2017 to ban judicial override, giving juries the final say on whether to impose the death penalty. Alabama had been the only state that allowed a judge to override a jury’s recommendation when sentencing capital murder cases.
But that ban on judicial override applied only to people charged after April 11, 2017. So it did not affect the sentences of those already on death row because a judge overrode a jury’s recommendation.
HB27, by Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, would apply the 2017 ban on judicial override retroactively, so that those on death row because of an override would have to be resentenced to life without parole.
Life without parole and death are the only two sentences for capital crimes in Alabama.
About 33 people on death row would be resentenced under England’s bill, according to the ACLU of Alabama, which supports HB27.
England said that because the Legislature decided, in the bipartisan bill that passed in 2017, that judicial override should be repealed, that the only right thing to do is to resentence those on death row because of judicial override to life without parole.
“Giving one person the unilateral ability to impose a death sentence is something that we as a group, bipartisan, decided that we shouldn’t do,” England said.
Rep. Jerry Starnes, R-Prattville, read from summaries of the crimes committed by three people who would be resentenced under England’s bill. One killed a couple in their 80s, another shot to death a young father, and a third raped and slashed the throat of a 46-year-old woman, Starnes said.
“I just want to say please remember the victims and their families while you vote for this,” Starnes told other members of the committee.
England said he understood the perspective of victims but said the juries in those cases and for all the others on death row because of judicial override heard all the circumstances of the crimes and decided life without parole was the proper sentence.
“Ultimately our criminal justice system puts the utmost confidence and respect on the jury’s decision,” England said.
But Republicans on the committee argued that judges made those decisions under the law on the books at the time.
Rep. David Faulkner, R-Mountain Brook, said he did not want to overturn the judges’ decisions because there was no way to know why the judges overrode the juries.
“I understand where you’re coming from,” Faulkner told England. “I also understand where the victims are coming from, though. And it’s a difficult thing to go back and say you were properly sentenced this way under the law at the time, but because we changed the law, now we’re going to go back and change that.”
Rep. Jim Hill, R-Moody, chairman of the judiciary committee and a former circuit judge, said that when he was a judge he followed the recommendations of juries on sentences in capital cases. But Hill said he did not want to second-guess judges who were following the when they decided to override a jury’s recommendation.
“I understand that an individual tried today would be subject to a different set of laws,” Hill said. “The individuals that were tried prior to the time that we changed the law were subject to those laws that were in effect at that time, and the law that was in effect at that time allowed judicial override.”
Former Alabama Govs. Don Siegelman and Robert Bentley took a public stance in support of England’s bill. Siegelman and Bentley took the same position last year in an op-ed article in The Washington Post, when they also spoke out against death sentences imposed by less than a unanimous decision by a jury. Alabama law allows juries to impose the death sentence by a vote of 10 of 12 jurors.
England sponsored the bill on judicial override last year, but it did not pass. In March, England spoke at a rally held by death penalty opponents and family members and advocates of people on death row.
“Justice demands us to afford those individuals who are still on death row, who are there for a judicial override, the opportunity to be resentenced,” England told the crowd at the rally. “It only makes sense, and that’s in its purest sense what justice means.”
Voting against HB27 were Republican representatives Hill, Faulkner, Starnes, Tim Wadsworth, Cynthia Almond, Russell Bedsole, Bryan Brinyark, Phillip Pettus, and Ben Robbins.
Voting in favor if it were Democratic representatives England, Prince Chestnut, Patrice McClammy, and Ontario Tillman.
Attorney General Steve Marshall opposes HB27, according to Amanda Priest, spokeswoman for Marshall’s office.
Also on Wednesday, the committee approved another bill by England that is intended to increase the consideration of advanced age and health problems as factors in decisions to grant parole. That bill, HB299, can now be considered by the full House.