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Capital punishment is legal in Alabama, as it is in most U.S. states. Capital punishment dates back to 1812, when present-day Alabama was still part of the Mississippi Territory.
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Alabama has the highest per capita death penalty rate in the country. In some years, it imposes more death sentences than Texas, a state with a population five times as large. Intentional murder with any of 18 aggravating factors can be charged as capital murder.
Alabama is the only remaining state in which trial judges are empowered to override a jury's recommendation of a life sentence and is the only state in which judges have routinely done so. Delaware and Florida previously permitted judicial override, but judges in those states had since the late 1990s used it only to impose life sentences, rather than death sentences. The Florida legislature formally repealed judicial override in 2016 and the Delaware Supreme Court ruled in Rauf v. State that the practice was unconstitutional.
The constitutionally of judicial override has been in dispute since the United States Supreme Court decided Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002), and nearly 100 have been sentenced to death in Alabama since 1976 as a result of a judicial sentencing override. The United States Supreme Court has remanded four cases to the Alabama state courts to consider the constitutionality of its sentencing statute, including at least one case involving judicial override. The Alabama Supreme Court and the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals have both ruled that the state's sentencing procedures are constitutional. Executions are carried out at the Holman Correctional Facility, near Atmore, Alabama.
From 1983 to January 2016, 57 people have been executed by the state of Alabama. As of 2015, Alabama had 195 inmates on death row, the 4th highest number in the US. As in any other state, people who are under 18 at the time of commission of the capital crime or are mentally retarded are nationally exempt from execution. The Governor of Alabama has the authority to grant a commutation of sentence in capital (as well as non-capital) cases. There has been only one commutation of a death sentence since 1976: Judith Ann Neelley's death sentence was commuted to life in prison by outgoing Governor Fob James in January 1999.
History
Between 1812 and 1965, 708 people were executed in Alabama. Until 1927, hanging was the primary method of execution, although one person was shot.
In addition to murder, capital crimes in Alabama formerly included rape, arson, and robbery. According to the Alabama Department of Corrections, 31 people were executed by the state for crimes other than murder - including rape, robbery and burglary - between 1927 and 1959. The U.S. Supreme Court has essentially eliminated the death penalty for any crime at the state level except murder in Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407 (2008).
The 1972 U.S. Supreme Court case Furman v. Georgia, requiring a degree of consistency in the application of the death penalty, established a de facto moratorium on capital punishment across the United States. That moratorium remained until July 2, 1976, when Gregg v. Georgia decided how states could impose death sentences without violating the Eighth Amendment's ban against cruel and unusual punishment. The death penalty in Alabama was reinstated on March 25, 1976, when Alabama's legislature passed, and Governor George Wallace signed, a new death penalty statute. No execution was carried out until 1983.
Holman Correctional Facility has a male death row that originally had a capacity of 20, but was expanded in the summer of 2000. The William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility has a male death row with a capacity of 24. Donaldson's death row houses prisoners who need to stay in the Birmingham judicial district. Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women houses the female death row. All executions occur at Holman.
Methods
From 1927 until 2002, electrocution was the only method of execution in Alabama. In July 2002, lethal injection became the default method, although electrocution can still be used at the request of the prisoner. Since the introduction of lethal injection, every inmate has chosen it over the electric chair. The last inmate executed involuntarily in the chair in Alabama was Lynda Lyon Block.
Controversies
Alabama's death penalty system has been criticized for ineffective legal support for poor inmates facing death sentences, court appointment of incompetent and inexperienced lawyers (the 1963 US Supreme Court decsion Gideon v. Wainright requires that all defendants must have legal aid), lack of financial aid to support poor accused persons (Alabama is the only state in the USA without a state-funded program to give legal aid to poor death row prisoners) and for racial bias in jury selection. Some cases have been highly controversial with more than 24 reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Brian K. Baldwin was executed in 1999 despite what some deemed insufficient evidence of his guilt and other controversial executions include those of Freddie Lee Wright, Cornelius Singleton and Roosevelt Collins.
There are also controversies surrounding judicial override of a juries decision to sentence a defendant to life imprisonment and impose the death penalty instead. Alabama is the only state where this happens. Delaware and Florida used to allow judge discretion but only used it in the opposite direction (death penalty to life imprisonment) and both systems were struck down in 2016). In Alabama a jury needs a 10-2 vote to recommend a life or death sentence. In 10 cases a 12-0 recommendation for a life without parole sentence was over-ridden by a judge issuing the death sentence.