This Week Injustice- Feb 25, 2024

The Alabama hypocrisy edition

Jane Magnolia aka Tulip Tree in bloom in Birmingham

Good evening all,

Alabama’s outrageous antics this week didn’t stop the Jane Magnolia trees from blooming. Their pink flowers opened up, almost overnight, breaking the colorless monotony of winter. I noticed them the same day all hell broke loose after the Alabama Supreme Court decided to say embryos are children, halting women’s fertility treatments across the state all in the name of “the sanctity of life.”

Because that story carries national implications, in both politics and healthcare, it dominated media coverage. But something else rotten occurred courtesy of state leadership, specifically Attorney General Steve Marshall. If you missed it, here’s what happened.

Marshall freed a former white cop convicted of shooting and killing a Black man after just two years in prison. This comes after Marshall wrested the case from Montgomery’s DA and brokered a plea deal, disregarding the jury’s decision to convict Aaron Cody Smith, and ultimately allowing Smith’s sentence to be reduced to time served, against the wishes of the DA who prosecuted the case and the victim’s family.

Think about the audacious hypocrisy here. Marshall is the same guy who sends an employee from his office to every parole hearing to oppose release, no matter how long the person has been locked away, no matter how much they’ve changed.

His allies in the victim’s advocacy organization known as VOCAL, which stands for “Victims of Crime and Leniency,” stand shoulder to shoulder with him, opposing parole in EVERY CASE THEY ADDRESS. They have literally never supported anyone’s release from prison. Both the AG and VOCAL claim to work for victims.

Just not these victims. Not the relatives of Gregory Gunn, who Smith killed in a violent encounter in a Montgomery neighborhood, shooting him seven times. A grand jury indicted Smith for murder and he was later convicted by a jury of the lesser charge of manslaughter and sentenced to 14 years in prison. He served just two years.

VOCAL had no comment on Marshall’s decision to get this conviction overturned despite the horror and outrage of the victim’s family.

 Columnist Josh Moon brilliantly ties this story to the Alabama GOP’s intent to do away with “divisive concepts” or diversity, equity and inclusion.”

“If we didn’t need DEI in this state,” Moon writes of Marshall’s decision to upend Smith’s conviction and sentence, “there would be some understanding of just how utterly racist and cruelly twisted that is.”

There is so much work to do. I’ll admit I sent a tweet cursing Alabama after I learned a man I knew at Donaldson prison died in the infirmary after 43 years in prison. Jim George was elderly, with dementia and Parkinsons, and still couldn’t get relief.

I would bet my house Steve Marshall wouldn’t lift a pinkie to help Jim George. Of course, Mr. George didn’t have anything to offer Marshall politically. He wasn’t part of law enforcement or any other valuable lobby in which to curry favor. He, like everyone else in prison who isn’t former Montgomery cop Aaron Cody Smith, is invisible to Marshall.

But Marshall isn’t invisible to us. We all see him for exactly what he is.

Here’s a look at the other stories from this week.

Don’t forget to take care of yourselves. It’s hard times for people with good sense and big hearts.

ADOC/PAROLE

Forgiveness will not set you free in Alabama. Al.com continues their series about Alabama’s busted parole board with how the board is voting against the wishes of victims, even when they’ve forgiven the perpetrator and advocated for parole. 

An ADOC correctional officer at Limestone was arrested in a contraband investigation at Donaldson prison. Meanwhile, two ADOC correctional officers are accused of assaulting a 75-year old incarcerated man with a broom handle at Limestone Prison. The elderly victim is now recovering in Kilby Prison’s infirmary. 

Meanwhile a group of 25 smiling correctional officers are featured in this article after graduating from Montgomery “jail management” courses. 

AG Steve Marshall wants to execute another human using suffocation by nitrogen gas. He’s asked the Alabama Supreme Court to set an executed date for Alan Miller, who they tried to execute by lethal injection last year, but botched. 

Assaults inside ADOC ticked down in the first three months of fiscal year 2024, but remain among the highest in the country. Paroles in the same three months have also ticked up slightly, but remain epically low at just a 17 percent grant rate. 

Funding the school to prison pipeline: Governor Ivey wants to use education dollars to build her mega-prison. Shameful. 

Spiritual advisor who witnessed Kenneth Smith’s horrific execution from nitrogen hypoxia; “Anyone who claims that this was anything short of torture is not just mistaken, they are a dangerous liar.” 

POLICE

WBRC takes a look at body cam footage of a fatal police shooting in 2019. The incident led to a $4.5 million verdict against the city of Birmingham. The city has asked a federal judge to throw out the verdict. 

Woman settles lawsuit after Etowah County jailed her for allegedly exposing her fetus to drugs. Turns out, she wasn’t even pregnant. 

LEGISLATIVE SESSION 

A bill to expand manslaughter to include fentanyl overdoses clears the house. The bill, sponsored by Republican Chris Pringle of Mobile, would allow a manslaughter charge against a person who who sells or gives away a drug containing fentanyl that leads to a fatal overdose. 

Meanwhile further expansion of Alabama’s child porn laws passes the house unanimously. The “Alabama Child Protection Act of 2024” targets images produced by artificial intelligence. 

“The only tool I have is to change the law.” Mobile lawmaker sponsors bill to increase criminal penalties for shooting into buildings and vehicles after spate of deadly shootings. It’s stories like these that remind me we need better tools, because harsher penalties are not a deterrent. 

Here’s what else passed this week.