This Week Injustice

Lots of reporting on prisons, paroles & death by nitrogen gas

(Possum in my backyard on January 9, 2024. I hope he/she is staying warm!)

Good afternoon everyone on this frigid Sunday.

Forgive me for sending back to back emails, but I’m still figuring out the best publishing schedule for my work. If you missed it yesterday, I sent you an essay that I wrote on where to find counternarratives about death row.

This was on my mind ahead of Alabama’s scheduled experimental execution of Kenneth Smith by suffocation using nitrogen gas. Headlines this week were dominated by this upcoming horror, as well as lots of good reporting on the ongoing nightmare unfolding inside our state prisons and what’s behind the meltdown at the parole board, which you will find through links below.

I appreciate seeing incredible journalism being produced across the state on these topics. I can remember when I started covering the sex abuse at Tutwiler Prison for Women in 2012, and sometimes it felt like I was the only reporter that cared.

I know now that’s no longer the case.

Hoping and praying for better news this week, but am steeling myself for heartbreak. Take care of yourselves and thanks for reading.

WEEK OF JANUARY 15, 2024

DEATH PENALTY

Kenneth Smith’s lawyers have asked a federal appeals court to block his execution. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in the case on Friday, but hasn’t indicated when it will rule. Smith’s spiritual advisor demanded that ADOC provide safeguards for him and others set to witness Smith’s execution. Doctors say Smith is at risk of vomiting, seizures and stroke during execution by nitrogen hypoxia, a method some veterinarians won’t even use on animals. The state inadvertently scheduled the nation’s first execution by nitrogen gas on a Jewish holiday. 

On Monday, a coalition of faith leaders will gather at the state capital to ask Gov. Kay Ivey to pause the execution. More than 100 have signed onto the effort. UN says Alabama’s planned execution of Kenneth Smith by nitrogen hypoxia may amount to torture. This untested method is part of a larger pattern, argues political scientist Austin Sarat, of experiments in executions that often lead to disasters. The organization Worth Rises has named the company that manufactured the gas mask ADOC plans to use in the execution. Sign their petition here. 

Death row went without heat during the recent deep freeze, reports AL Political Reporter. I’m told ADOC fixed the heat a few hours after the story was published. 

An analysis shows states with death penalty also have weakest gun safety laws. No surprise there, but interesting to look at the study.

ADOC 

Who killed Daniel Williams? John Archibald writes about ADOC’s responsibility in one case that made international headlines after Williams was tortured and killed the day he was set to be released. The Washington Examiner writes that Alabama prisons are torture camps and Gov. Kay Ivey doesn’t seem to care. 

A lawsuit alleges retaliation against prison activists and dire conditions inside Limestone Prison, reports Decatur Daily. 

A third correctional officer in two weeks is arrested for corruption. Police say Ebony Chillous, a guard at Staton Prison, received payments from an incarcerated man via Cashapp. Meanwhile police arrest a man they say tossed a backpack full of contraband over a fence at Elmore prison. He was arrested in December for allegedly doing the same thing at Bullock prison. 

PAROLE 

How did a troubled penal system decide the best way forward was to keep as many people in prison for as long as possible? Reporter Ivana Hrynkiw provides a deep dive into Alabama’s parole board and chair Leigh Gwathney. Jimmy O’Neal Spencer’s crime spree is blamed for triggering the current parole shutdown. 

Here’s a profile on one case, a 68-year old man serving a life sentence for growing marijuana. The parole board isn’t just denying release to a record number of people, they’re sending a record number of people back to prison who haven’t committed new crimes. 

Alabama’s parole board is back to work after granting fewer paroles in 2023 than any year on record. According to ABPP’s 2023 yearly report, the 3-member panel granted just 297 paroles out of 3583 cases considered. That’s a grant rate of just 8 percent. So far in 2024, parole grants have ticked up slightly to around 20 percent. 

POLICE

Advocates for protestors in Decatur implore the mayor to stop the crackdown on peaceful demonstrations over Stephen Perkins’ murder by police. 

The Decatur police officer charged in Stephen Perkins’ murder got special treatment. The Decatur Daily reports Mac Bailey Marquette was granted an exceptionally low bond and spent no time in jail despite being subject to Aniah’s Law, which requires people accused of murder to stay in jail without bail until a pre-trial hearing. 

Mobile’s city council approves a new ordinance requiring police to disclose body camera video, but will wait 45 days to vote on a separate issue that would prohibit no-knock warrants and pre-dawn raids by police. 

COURTS & LEGAL

Families of transgender young people react in anger to a court’s decision allowing enforcement of Alabama’s ban on gender-affirming treatment. Meanwhile Sen. Gerald Allen proposes a bill to restrict flag displays by imposing misdemeanor penalties if public buildings display “unapproved” flags, but Allen claims it’s not intended to target LGBTQ pride.

Rep. Phillip Ensler proposes a package of gun safety laws ahead of legislative session. 

Two Alabama lawmakers propose bills that would extend the death penalty as possible sentence for child sexual battery and mandate life without parole for human trafficking. The U.S. Supreme court has already said rape isn’t a capital crime, but bill sponsor Sen. Arthur Orr said maybe the current court will feel differently. 

“It doesn’t smell right.” Politico reports on “Alabama’s medical marijuana debacle.”