Today's Mobile Press-Register carries the editorial, "Judges shouldn't turn life terms into death sentences."
ALABAMA IS one of 34 states that enforces the death penalty, a stance that is supported by a majority of the state’s voters.
When it comes to imposing such a sentence, however, the decision should be shared by a group — the jury — and not rest on the shoulders of an individual judge.
Yet Alabama, despite a contrary ruling by the state Supreme Court, continues to be the only state in the nation that freely allows trial and appellate judges to overrule jury sentences for life without parole, and instead give convicts the death penalty. Florida and Delaware also allow "judicial overrides," but with strict limitations.
A recent report by the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery now says that in Alabama, one in five of the 199 people on death row were sent there because a judge overruled a jury.
It’s time for Alabama to limit judicial overrides, which are unfair to juries, defendants and judges alike. This could be a job for the appellate courts or for the Legislature.
And:
Consider the 1990s case of Monroeville resident Walter McMillian, who was convicted of capital murder. The jury recommended life without parole, but the judge upped the sentence to execution.
Before it could be carried out, however, new evidence showed that Mr. McMillian wasn’t guilty after all. Had he been put to death, the judge would have been solely responsible for the death of an innocent man.
The McMillian case brings up a different question: Is it really fair to Alabama’s judges, who are elected, to have to endure the political pressure to be "tough on crime"? Indeed, many judicial candidates currently run for office on just such a platform.
We would say no.
The bottom line is that a jury — and not a judge, no matter how wise or experienced — should be deciding whether a prisoner gets life without parole or the death penalty in capital murder cases. Alabama’s system, which doesn’t recognize this fact, needs to be fixed.
The EJI report, The Death Penalty in Alabama: Judge Override, is available in Adobe .pdf format.
Earlier coverage of the EJI report on judicial override begins at the link
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