OUTLIER COUNTIES: Alabama’s Leading Death Sentencing County Elects Prosecutors Who Oppose Capital Punishment

Jefferson County, Alabama is among both the 2% of coun­ties that account for more than half of all exe­cu­tions in the U.S. and are respon­si­ble for more than half of all pris­on­ers on death row across the coun­try. It led the state in new death sen­tences from 2010 – 2015, putting more peo­ple on death row than 99.5% of U.S. coun­ties. All five of the defen­dants sen­tenced to death in those cas­es were Black. 

But the coun­ty may soon see a decline in death sen­tences as vot­ers appear to have oust­ed the coun­ty’s two elect­ed dis­trict attor­neys in favor of pros­e­cu­tors who say they are ​“per­son­al­ly opposed” to the death penal­ty and plan to use it rarely. Charles Todd Henderson was elect­ed as dis­trict attor­ney of Jefferson’s Birmingham divi­sion, and Lynneice Washington leads a tight race in the Bessemer divi­sion, where votes will be recount­ed on November 21. 

Henderson has crit­i­cized Alabama’s judi­cial over­ride pol­i­cy, which allows judges to impose a death sen­tence even when a jury rec­om­mends life, say­ing ​“We serve at the will of the peo­ple .… We should hon­or what the people say.” 

Alabama is the only state to per­mit such over­rides and Jefferson County judges over­rode jury’s rec­om­men­da­tions for life in 44% of the 18 death penal­ty cas­es from the coun­ty that were decid­ed on direct appeal between 2006 – 2015. All 18 cas­es involved a non-unan­i­mous jury, an out­lier prac­tice that was struck down by state courts in Delaware and Florida this year, leav­ing Alabama as the last state to allow it, and in every one of those cas­es, defense lawyers pre­sent­ed less than one day’s worth of mitigation evidence. 

Henderson also said he sup­ports review­ing cur­rent Jefferson County death penal­ty cas­es for pos­si­ble wrong­ful con­vic­tions, cit­ing the case of Anthony Ray Hinton, who was released in 2015 after spend­ing 30 years on death row. Hinton’s tri­al was taint­ed by racial bias, inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and junk science. 

Washington echoed Henderson’s con­cerns, say­ing, ​“I am per­son­al­ly opposed to the death penal­ty because there have been so many peo­ple who were put on death row who were lat­er found to be innocent.” 

In addi­tion to Hinton, two oth­er wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed death row pris­on­ers from Jefferson County also have been released. Wesley Quick, who was just 18 years old at the time of the mur­der for which he was twice wrong­ly sen­tenced to death, was acquit­ted of all charges in his third tri­al in 2003. Montez Spradley was sen­tenced to death by a judge who over­rode a 10 – 2 jury rec­om­men­da­tion for life. It was lat­er dis­cov­ered that a star wit­ness­es for the pros­e­cu­tion — Spradley’s dis­grunt­ed ex-girl­friend — had been paid $10,000 for her tes­ti­mo­ny, and although the judge had per­son­al­ly approved half of that pay­ment, nei­ther she nor the pros­e­cu­tion dis­closed it to the defense. Spradley entered a no-con­test plea in exchange for his free­dom in 2015.