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Senate Judiciary Committees this afternoon approved prosecutor-backed legislation to shorten the appeal time in death penalty cases.
Sen. Bill Holtzclaw, R-Madison, said the average stay on Death Row is 16 years and climbing. That's too long, he said.
"This is not about saving money. This is about justice," Hotzclaw said.
Currently, a person given the death penalty has a series of direct appeals, first to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, and then to the Alabama Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. After those are complete, the defendant can begin Rule 32 appeals, post-conviction appeals that look at other issues such as the trial lawyer's competence.
The proposed legislation, dubbed "The Fair Justice Act", would run both sets of appeals simultaneously. Capital defendants would be required to file Rule 32 petitions within 180 days of filing their first direct appeal. Death Row inmates could still make federal appeals.
The committees held a public hearing yesterday. Defense lawyers say they fear that shortening the appeal time could lead to the execution of innocent people
On the legislation in the Alabama Legislature that would speed up executions:
"Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court reversed a case that actually came from this community," Stevenson said Tuesday. "Andrew Ray Hinton is someone who has been on death row for 28 years. We're persuaded that he is innocent. We asked a bunch of courts to grant him relief, and finally, it took the United States Supreme Court [until] yesterday to overturn his conviction. That would not have been possible if the proposed legislation that has been introduced was on the books. This would be an innocent person who would not have been spared execution."
Between 2009 and 2011, Alabama had the highest execution rate in the country, Stevenson said.
"The problem with our death penalty is not that it's not moving fast enough, but that it's not reliable enough. They are too many people who are literally dying for legal assistance. I can count dozens who don't have lawyers. To pass a bill that speeds up the process without dealing with the counsel problem, in my view, would be very, very misguided."
"I actually think it's going to create lots of delay. These new procedures have not been vetted by the Alabama Rules of Criminal Procedure Committee. They haven't been reviewed by courts. They haven't been consulted with any of the defense bar. It's just not a way to make a law in this area. That's very complicated and, I get, critically challenging and controversial, but I think it would be a very, very bad decision for the legislature to adopt that proposed bill."
On the lack of attorneys for capital cases and death row appeals:
Even finding a good lawyer for capital cases and post-conviction proceedings is difficult, Stevenson said.
"We don't have a state-funded agency that provides legal assistance to death row prisoners. We don't have any state funding that's going to that. We cap the amount of money that lawyers can be paid for taking on these post-conviction cases at $1,500. No lawyer is going to take a case for that amount of money. These cases take 500 to 1,000 hours to prepare. If you show me a good lawyer who is prepared to work for a dollar an hour, we can perhaps say we've got that situation solved."
"But you don't find good lawyers who work for that kind of money, and consequently we have a huge problem with compensation for lawyers in Alabama right now."
