28 February 2020 :

Alabama Senate committee approves cut to death penalty appeals. The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday approved a bill that would cut out a level of appeals in the death penalty process. The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, passed the committee on a 4-3 vote. It goes to the full Senate for consideration. The legislation would require 1 round of appeals in death penalty cases to skip the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals and go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. Ward said before the vote that he believed condemned inmates still had plenty of avenues to appeal their cases, including the federal courts. Christine Freeman, executive director of the Federal Defenders for the Middle District of Alabama, told the committee of nine exonerations of inmates who were on death row in recent years. She noted that it took those inmates anywhere from 3 1/2 to 28 years to clear their names. “We all know death is different,” she said. “Decisions in capital cases have consequences we can’t take back. It’s this difference that makes the appellate process so critical to capital defendants.” Freeman also noted that Texas, which has a similar system, also requires unanimous jury verdicts to impose the death penalty and funds its public defender system better than Alabama.