On October 3, 2003, the Alabama Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly reversed Phillip Tomlin’s death sen­tence and ordered him resen­tenced to life in prison with­out parole, mark­ing the Court’s first rul­ing to cre­ate a stan­dard of review for judi­cial over­ride in the state. Tomlin had been on death row for more than 25 years despite the fact that four juries have rec­om­mend­ed that he receive a life sen­tence for his alleged role in a Mobile, Alabama, revenge killing. In each of those cas­es, the tri­al judge over­rode the jury to impose a death sen­tence because Tomlin’s co-defen­dant, John Daniels, was sent to death row. In its deci­sion, the Court not­ed, ​“It would be incon­sis­tent to hold that Daniels’s sen­tence could prop­er­ly be used to under­mine the jury’s rec­om­men­da­tion of life impris­on­ment with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.” The Court’s opin­ion also not­ed an ear­li­er Alabama Supreme Court rul­ing that con­clud­ed that even a 10 – 2 jury rec­om­men­da­tion should be giv­en strong con­sid­er­a­tion by the sen­tenc­ing judge. Tomlin was rep­re­sent­ed by his pro-bono attor­ney, University of Chicago law pro­fes­sor Bernard Harcourt. Mobile Register, October 4, 2003, and Attorney Press Release, October 7, 2003). See Life Without Parole.

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