10 February 2017 :

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved 5-3 Senate Bill 16 to undo judicial override. Alabama is the only state that allows judges to override juries’ recommendations for life in prison and instead impose death sentences. The bill’s sponsor is Sen. Dick Brewbaker, R-Montgomery. He said he knows of 23 cases since 2005 where judges overrode juries and sentenced the convicted to death. “The reason I got interested in removing judicial override is the fact that more than half the overrides take place in election years,” Brewbaker said. He said judges don’t want to appear soft on crime. The Alabama Attorney General’s Office spoke against the bill, saying overrides are constitutional and in some cases go the other way — judges turn death penalties into life sentences. According to the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative, since 1976, Alabama judges have overridden jury verdicts 112 times. In 91 percent of them, the judge imposed the death penalty. Brewbaker’s bill now goes to the full Senate. Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, has a similar bill in the House.