A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Birmingham News called on Alabama law­mak­ers to pass leg­is­la­tion that would require a three-year mora­to­ri­um on impos­ing death sen­tences and car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions, giv­ing the state time to address flaws in the death penal­ty sys­tem. The edi­to­r­i­al out­lined five rea­sons why leg­is­la­tors with var­i­ous posi­tions should be unit­ed in such an effort. The paper stated:

- Lawmakers who are pro-life should be con­cerned Alabama is among the nation’s most gung-ho and care­less states in putting peo­ple to death.

- Lawmakers who are fis­cal­ly con­ser­v­a­tive should be con­cerned that stud­ies in oth­er states have shown it’s much less expen­sive to lock up killers for life than to put them to death. A news­pa­per report found Florida could save a whop­ping $51 mil­lion a year by sen­tenc­ing killers to life with­out parole rather than death.

- Lawmakers who are trou­bled by racial dis­par­i­ties should be con­cerned the col­or of a defen­dan­t’s or vic­tim’s skin plays a role in who gets executed.

- Lawmakers who don’t trust our gov­ern­ment with too much pow­er or too many tasks sure­ly ought to be con­cerned about its exe­cu­tion of cit­i­zens, just as a mat­ter of principle.

- Lawmakers who are wor­ried about the prospect of exe­cut­ing the wrong per­son should be con­cerned that Alabama has been ter­ri­bly stingy with legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion, that inno­cent peo­ple across the coun­try have, in fact, been con­vict­ed of crimes and that the court sys­tem has not been whol­ly reli­able in right­ing these mis­car­riages of justice.

The edi­to­r­i­al con­clud­ed, ​“Lawmakers should also look at the costs of car­ry­ing out death sen­tences in Alabama and eval­u­ate whether con­tin­u­ing to do so rep­re­sents the best use of the state’s lim­it­ed resources. They should look at the prob­lem of wrong­ful con­vic­tions and deter­mine whether there can ever be enough assur­ance an inno­cent per­son won’t be put to death. And law­mak­ers ought to study the arbi­trary cri­te­ria that decide which crimes are wor­thy of the death penal­ty and the arbi­trary way those cas­es play out, and they should then con­sid­er whether we as humans ought to be in the busi­ness of mak­ing life-and-death deci­sions at all.”

(“OUR VIEW: Alabama law­mak­ers should pass leg­is­la­tion to put a three-year halt to impos­ing death sen­tences or car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions,” Birmingham News, April 25, 2011, edi­to­r­i­al). Read more Editorials. See Recent Legislative Activity.

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