Soon after passing legislation to make death penalty trials fairer by preventing judges from overriding jury recommendations of life sentences, the Alabama legislature is taking steps to enact a bill that critics say would make capital appeals far less fair. The bill, denominated the “Fair Justice Act,” would constrict the amount of time death-row prisoners have to file appeals, impose deadlines for judges to rule on appeals, and require prisoners to pursue their direct appeal and post-conviction appeal simultaneously. Critics of SB 187/HB 260, which has passed the Senate and been approved by the House Judiciary Committee, include Harvard Law School Professor Ronald Sullivan Jr., Alabama death-row exoneree Anthony Ray Hinton, and Birmingham attorney Lisa Borden, who say the proposal is neither fair nor just. They argue that the bill would reduce the quality of appellate representation, insulate trial errors from appellate review, and increase the risk of executing innocent people. Sullivan called the bill “deceitfully named” and wrote it would “undermine much of the progress” made when Alabama recently became the last state in the U.S. to end judicial override. Hinton, who spent 30 years on Alabama’s death row before being exonerated, said, “If proposed changes to Alabama’s postconviction procedures under consideration by the state legislature had been enacted, I would have been executed despite my innocence.” Hinton explains that he spent 14 years looking for volunteer lawyers who could help him prove his innocence, saying, “Because the so called “Fair Justice Act” now pending before the state legislature puts time restrictions on how long death row prisoners have to prove their innocence or a wrongful conviction, this legislation increases the risk of executing innocent people and makes our system even less fair.” Borden raises concerns that the poor quality of trial-level representation will spill over into the proposed shortened appeals process. “The average trial of a capital case with appointed counsel takes just a few days, given appointed counsel’s frequent lack of preparation and failure to challenge the State’s case. …The attorneys and experts who will try to uncover and correct the injustices done to poor defendants must not be forced to rush through the process too.” She suggests, “If Alabama wants to save taxpayers millions of dollars, and provide certainty and finality for the peace of mind of the victim’s families, it could do so by abolishing the death penalty, or by limiting its use to only the most egregious cases and providing real, effective representation for those charged with capital crimes.”
(R. Sullivan Jr., “Opinion: A quick death in Alabama,” Montgomery Advertiser, May 3, 2017; A. Hinton, “I was released from death row. Under the Fair Justice Act, I’d be dead.,” AL.com, April 27, 2017; L. Borden, “The ‘Fair Justice Act’ is neither fair nor just,” AL.com, April 20, 2017.) Read the text of SB 187 and HB 260. See Arbitrariness, Innocence, and Recent Legislative Activity.
