Billy Hill spent sev­en years as a dis­trict attor­ney in Shelby, Coosa, and Clay coun­ties in Alabama, and has recon­sid­ered his stance on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Mr. Hill says that he would wel­come a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in Alabama while a study com­mis­sion exam­ines the state’s death penal­ty to eval­u­ate whether it is ​“a wise and humane use of our resources.” Wrongful con­vic­tions, the arbi­trary nature of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, poor rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and the long-term suf­fer­ing of vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers are among Hill’s main con­cerns about cur­rent death penal­ty laws. He believes that life with­out parole is a bet­ter alter­na­tive for vio­lent offend­ers. Hill now works as a Shelby County pub­lic defend­er.

In his crit­i­cisms of Alabama’s death penal­ty, Hill notes that two inno­cent men have already been freed from the state’s death row and that many oth­ers con­tin­ue to await their exe­cu­tion with­out the ben­e­fit of ​“top-flight rep­re­sen­ta­tion.” With regard to the arbi­trary nature of the states’ cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment statute, Hill observes, ​“Do you real­ize that if two peo­ple are argu­ing on a street cor­ner and one of them pulls a gun and kills the oth­er one, that is sim­ple mur­der? But, take the same sce­nario and put one of them in a car, and it becomes a cap­i­tal case.… [I]n 30 years of observ­ing vio­lent offend­ers, I find 3 fac­tors present in almost all of them: some kind of child­hood abuse, either phys­i­cal or sex­u­al; some type of chem­i­cal depen­dence, either alco­hol or drugs; and neu­ro­log­i­cal dam­age.” Hill also believes that the death penal­ty fails to serve the needs of vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers because exe­cu­tion dates are often set and then can­celed sev­er­al times dur­ing repeat­ed appeals. ​“It just nev­er goes away for the vic­tim’s fam­i­ly,” said Hill.

Noting that the U.S. is one of the few indus­tri­al­ized nation in the world to use the death penal­ty, Hill said that he believes that life with­out parole is the more appro­pri­ate sen­tence for vio­lent offend­ers. ​“A lot of peo­ple do not real­ize that in Alabama life with­out parole means you are not leav­ing prison except with your toes turned up,” he said. If the state insists on keep­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, Hill observes that law­mak­ers should be pre­pared to pay to high costs asso­ci­at­ed with cre­at­ing a sys­tem that is more fair and accurate.

(The Birmingham News, July 30, 2007). See New Voices, Innocence, Victims, Costs, and Life Without Parole.

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