This Week Injustice- Feb 4, 2024

Rep. Chris England is a voice for reform

Greetings dear readers,

I hope this email finds all of you peaceful, healthy and staying warm. Chances are you’re still feeling a simmer of outrage after Kenneth Smith’s execution, and ahead of the Alabama legislative session set to begin this week on Tuesday, February 6th. Outrage can be a great motivator to not accept the status quo, to organize, to push for accountability and demand more of our “leaders.” Let’s try to use it to effect change!

In addition to curating all the stories involving crime and punishment in Alabama, I will do my best in This Week Injustice to track the good bills seeking to reform our broken criminal justice system, along with stuff proposed by GOP lawmakers that will increase our already bursting prison population.

If you appreciate these posts, please share or hit the heart button! And as always, thanks for reading. I appreciate you.

LEGISLATIVE SESSION REFORM BILLS

• HB 16- would revise bail reform to allow courts to accept less than amount ordered. Sponsored by Rep. Chris England.

• HB 27- would allow resentencing for those on death row after non-unanimous jury verdicts. This would impact the 30 people sentenced to die due to judicial override. Sponsored by Rep. Chris England.

• HB 29- would provide a second chance to some people sentenced to life under the state’s draconian habitual felony offender act. Sponsored by Rep. Chris England.

• HB 30- would create a council to oversee the pardons and parole board and new requirements for parole consideration. Sponsored by Rep. Chris England.

• HB 33- would allow people considered for parole to appear at their hearings virtually. Alabama is currently one of the only states in which the person being considered has zero presence or input in their own parole hearing.

• HB 63- would expand option of split sentences from 20 years or less to 30 years or less. Rep. Jim Hill is sponsoring.

Almost all reform bills are sponsored by Rep. Chris England. Read more coverage about them here.

LEGISLATIVE SESSION STATUS QUO

Two Republican lawmakers, along with Hoover police and AG Steve Marshall, want to make faking an abduction a felony, punishable by 10 years in prison. SB 24 is a reaction bill to Carlee Russell, a Hoover woman who claimed she was kidnapped, but it turned out to be a hoax. Russell was found guilty of two misdemeanors and sentenced to a year in prison, but for this crowd, that’s not enough. Russell’s attorneys have suggested her mental and emotional health was behind the incident. 

Another area where GOP lawmakers are seeking to create new punishments is voting rights. Once again, they will take up a controversial bill that will create new or increase existing sanctions for anyone caught assisting another person with their absentee ballot. SB 1 stipulates if a person receives payment they could be charged with a Class C felony, or Class B for the person who pays for the assistance, which carries a 20-year prison sentence.  

ADOC

The legislature’s lack of interest in addressing Alabama’s prison crisis is even more astonishing when you consider that more people died in Alabama prisons last year than any year on record. Silence from Gov. Ivey, ADOC and AG Steve Marshall on the 325 deaths and no plans by the GOP-controlled legislature to address the rampant violence and drug overdoses in the legislative session, which starts next week. Their priorities do include, however, “challenging the woke socialist agenda.” 

Excellent report by AP connecting prison labor to fast food. There is growing interest in this issue as a landmark federal lawsuit filed in Alabama calling ADOC’s exploitation of labor “modern day slavery” makes its way through the courts. 

A man’s family sues ADOC for failing to intervene after he was killed by another man at Easterling prison. Christopher Mount, suicidal after being denied parole, was placed in a segregation cell with another man, who according to the complaint told an officer he would kill Mount if the officer didn’t move him. The officer did nothing and Mount was strangled. The man who killed him died by suicide less than a month later. 

PAROLE BOARD

In the latest of a series about Alabama’s busted parole board and their pro forma denials, AL.com reporters dig into a case in which the parole board said a man was too dangerous to release. The problem—he’d been dead for 10 days. They also highlight a case of a woman sentenced to life for a drug-related robbery that resulted in no injuries. She’s in work release but can’t make parole, incarcerated now 31 years and counting. Student journalists are writing smartly about how badly parole reforms are needed. This is a succinct summary of the meltdown under Board Chair Leigh Gwathney. 

DEATH PENALTY

Despite AG Steve Marshall’s claims that Kenneth Smith’s execution by nitrogen suffocation was “textbook,” witnesses describe an agonizing 22 minute death. Analysis: Alabama claimed it would be a painless death. It was not.  Spiritual adviser Jeff Hood says Kenneth execution by nitrogen gas suffocation was “the most violent thing I’ve ever seen.” 43 men on death row elected nitrogen hypoxia as the execution method after ADOC forced them to choose, but an effort by federal defenders is underway to stop any more executions by nitrogen suffocation. 

Other states like Ohio are considering adding nitrogen hypoxia to their own death machines after Steve Marshall’s offer to help them. Meanwhile Louisiana’s new Republican Governor wants the state to add new execution methods like gas to restart government killings, on hold in LA for the last decade due to lack of lethal injection drugs. 

Four days after Kenneth Smith’s execution, Alabama’s AG sought an execution date for another man on death row, Jamie Mills. The AG’s office filed the request with the AL Supreme Court to kill Jamie using lethal injection. Brian Lyman wisely asks the question, with Alabama’s murder rate the third highest in the nation, does Kenneth Smith’s execution by torture make you feel safer? And Sister Helen Prejean points to Kenneth’s terrible death as exhibit A on why the death penalty writ large needs to be abolished. 

More support for Toforest Johnson’s innocence, this time from a Republican lawyer at a conservative firm, speaking about the case on Capital Journal. If you haven’t checked out the 8-part podcast series I produced on the outrageous injustice of Toforest’s conviction and continued incarceration, it’s called Earwitness and you can find it on all major podcast platforms. Give it a listen! 

The attorney who represents Rocky Myers, a man on Alabama’s death row who many believe is innocent, discusses his case with Amnesty International. 

COURTS

A federal jury awards $4.5 million to victims in 2019 shooting by Birmingham Police. But Alabama won’t award two wrongfully convicted brothers any money for their 20 years in prison. 

A Lauderdale County judge faces 16 charges of using office for personal gain after audits show over $146,000 in undocumented expenses from two funds he oversaw. He blames sloppy bookkeeping during COVID. 

Auburn will host the Alabama Supreme Court oral arguments on March 14, open to public. The case is about medical malpractice.

JAILS 

Birmingham’s mayor sues Jefferson County’s Sheriff over alleged refusal to accept any more people into the county jail from the antiquated city jail. This is the latest in a long running squabble over where to hold people after arrest. At issue is “aging conditions” of the Birmingham city jail, at least according to those involved. Might the issue just be that we’re jailing too many people? 

OTHER NEWS

The Feds won’t tell columnist Kyle Whitmire how much a junket cost that occurred four years ago. An Alabama delegation, including AG Steve Marshall, went to the Mexican jungle to tour a meth lab.

Alabama will receive an additional $5.5 million in national opioid settlement money. Meanwhile an oversight panel is hearing possible uses for the $278 million the state already expected from opioid settlements. Last year the legislature allocated a measly $1.5 million from the fund for substance treatment in Alabama prisons.