Entries tagged with “Judicial override”
What to Know Series
,Jul 29, 2026
What to Know: Sentencing Practices and the Death Penalty
Why it matters: State laws permitting judges to override jury decisions and the imposition of death sentences based on non-unanimous jury verdicts have contributed to Alabama and Florida’s high death sentencing rates — with nearly 20% of Alabama’s death-sentenced population on death row because of judicial override. Between 1976 and 2017, elected Alabama judges overrode jury sentencing decisions 112 times. In 91% of those cases, judges overruled jury decisions of life to impose death sentences.
Issues
New Voices
,May 26, 2023
Former Republican and Democratic Governors from Alabama Critique State’s Death Penalty and Express Regret
“[W]e have come over time to see the flaws in our nation’s justice system and to view the state’s death penalty laws in particular as legally and morally troubling,” wrote two former governors of Alabama in an op-ed for the Washington Post. Republican Robert Bentley (pictured, right) and Democrat Don Siegelman (pictured, left) agree that the 146 people whose death sentences were imposed by non-unanimous juries or judicial override should have their sentences commuted. “We missed our chance to…
Issues
Aug 09, 2021
Alabama Appeals Court Reverses Lower Court Ruling and Restores Death Sentence in Case in Which 10 of 12 Jurors Voted for Life
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) has reversed a lower court ruling and ordered the court to reinstate the death penalty against a Birmingham man whose trial judge had sentenced him to death even though the jury had voted 10 – 2 to recommend a life sentence. With no judges dissenting, the appeals court on August 6, 2021 overturned a Jefferson County circuit court’s determination that Brandon Deon Mitchell should receive a new penalty phase hearing because of his trial counsel’s failure…
Issues
Foreign Nationals
,Apr 12, 2021
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of April 5, 2021
NEWS (4/8/21) — Nevada: The Nevada Supreme Court has granted capital defendant Wilber Ernesto Martinez-Guzman’s emergency motion to stay a premature deadline the trial court had set for his lawyers to file a claim that he is ineligible for the death penalty because of intellectual disability. A trial court in Reno had set an April 20 deadline for Martinez-Guzman, four months earlier than the time allotted under Nevada law, which permits a defendant to file up to ten days before the scheduled…
Issues
Dec 30, 2019
Law Review: New Article Highlights Decline of Judicial Death Sentences
At least 99 men and one woman are on death row in eight U.S. states, condemned to death by judges without the prior authorization of a jury, according to a 2019 study by researchers Michael Radelet and Ben Cohen (pictured) published in the Annual Review of Law and Social Science. Another 18 prisoners sentenced to death since the resumption of capital punishment in the U.S. in the 1970s, the study shows, have been executed after judges disregarded or overrode jury votes in favor of life.
Issues
New Voices
,Nov 15, 2016
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…