Alabama Judge Rules Capital Sentencing Scheme Unconstitutional

Jefferson County, Alabama Circuit Judge Tracie Todd (pictured) ruled on March 3 that Alabama’s capital sentencing procedure violates the U.S. Constitution. Judge Todd barred the death penalty for four capital murder defendants, saying that Alabama’s use of judicial override violates the Sixth Amendment.

Under Alabama’s system, at least 10 jurors must agree in order to recommend a death sentence, but a judge can override the jury’s recommendation and impose death even if the jury recommended a life sentence. Because of this practice, Judge Todd said, “Alabama has become a clear outlier.” She said the death penalty, “is being imposed in a wholly unconstitutional manner.”

In reading her ruling from the bench, the judge noted that Alabama has executed more defendants than states five times its size and questioned whether the partisan election of judges created a danger of judges imposing the death penalty due to political pressure.

A 2011 report by the Equal Justice Initiative documented the effects of Alabama judicial overrides of jury life recommendations. More recently, a study by the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Law and Justice at Harvard found that more than three-quarters of the death sentences imposed in Alabama in the past 5 years involved non-unanimous juries.

Alabama, Delaware, and Florida are the only states that permit a judge to impose the death penalty after the jury has not unanimously recommended death.