‘I Asked God to Forgive Me’: Former Alabama Governors Express Doubts About Capital Punishment

Two for­mer Alabama gov­er­nors, one a Democrat and one a Republican, have expressed seri­ous doubts about the death penal­ty in the state and across the country.

In inter­views with Birmingham tele­vi­sion reporter Lee Hedgepeth in advance of the October 21, 2021 exe­cu­tion of Alabama death-row pris­on­er Willie B. Smith III, Democrat Don Siegelman (pic­tured, left) and Republican Robert Bentley (pic­tured, right), both said they now have sig­nif­i­cant reser­va­tions about the death penal­ty. Siegelman, who served as gov­er­nor from 1995 to 1999, and Bentley, who served from 2011 to 2017, each denied clemen­cy to eight death-row pris­on­ers exe­cut­ed dur­ing their tenures. Both unsuc­cess­ful­ly urged Governor Kay Ivey to com­mute Smith’s death sen­tence based on evi­dence that he was intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled. ​“If I knew then what I know now,” says Siegelman, “[the pris­on­ers] wouldn’t [have been] executed.”

Bentley told Hedgepeth that his reli­gious beliefs and his eth­i­cal views as a med­ical doc­tor leave him ​“torn” about the use of the death penal­ty. However, exe­cut­ing Smith, he said, would be inap­pro­pri­ate. ​“If you were a young child and were men­tal­ly chal­lenged, obvi­ous­ly, you wouldn’t be in jail. … [T]he men­tal capac­i­ty of an indi­vid­ual should come into play.” 

While Bentley sup­port for com­mu­ta­tion arose out of the facts of Smith’s case, Siegelman — who also served as attor­ney gen­er­al — is now opposed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in all cir­cum­stances. ​“Carrying out [Alabama’s] high­est form of pun­ish­ment is wrong for mul­ti­ple rea­sons,” says Siegelman, and the exe­cu­tions he allowed to be con­duct­ed ​“still don’t sit well” with him more than two decades later.

The for­mer gov­er­nors said that Alabama’s death penal­ty ​“makes no sense” in many ways. Neither sees the death penal­ty as an effec­tive deter­rent against crime. ​“Most [peo­ple com­mit­ting crimes] are under the influ­ence or they’re angry, but they don’t think about the death penal­ty,” says Bentley. He and Siegelman believe that life in prison with­out parole is a more effec­tive pun­ish­ment. ​“If you want to pun­ish some­one for a crime, you don’t want to put them out of mis­ery,” adds Siegelman. 

Siegelman and Bentley’s views on the death penal­ty changed after leav­ing office. ​“I am pro-life: I don’t believe in abor­tions. I don’t believe in euthana­sia. I believe in life,” Bentley explains. ​“I don’t think any­one has the right to take some­body else’s life.” Bentley also said he ​“ago­nized” about rec­on­cil­ing his oath as a physi­cian with his new role as gov­er­nor. ​“I was put in the sit­u­a­tion as a physi­cian, as gov­er­nor, and I had to decide which route I had to go,” he says. ​“And at that time, I was the gov­er­nor, and so I had to make those deci­sions.” Bentley lament­ed the lack of unbi­ased infor­ma­tion that was avail­able to him when he was mak­ing clemen­cy deci­sions. ​“Much of the mate­r­i­al that was brought to me was from the pros­e­cu­tors,” he said. ​“It was somewhat one-sided.”

During his tenures as attor­ney gen­er­al and as gov­er­nor, Siegelman said he con­sid­ered exe­cu­tions a nec­es­sary duty, even after a guber­na­to­r­i­al tour of Alabama’s death rows and an elec­tric chair demon­stra­tion ​“fright­ened” him. ​“I’ll nev­er, ever for­get the faces I saw on death row and the con­di­tions under which [death row pris­on­ers] were liv­ing,” he said. 

Siegelman says his tri­al and con­vic­tion of fraud in 2006 ​“of some­thing that I knew hadn’t hap­pened” opened his eyes to the fal­li­bil­i­ty of the judi­cial sys­tem and what that meant for the pris­on­ers put to death dur­ing his gov­er­nor­ship. ​“Some of the faces and names of those peo­ple who were exe­cut­ed dur­ing my term as gov­er­nor flashed before me,” says Siegelman. ​“I shud­dered at the thought of — had I made a mis­take. I asked God to forgive me.”