Alabama House Judiciary Committee rejects bill making judicial override ban retroactive

Alabamians sentenced to death by a judge who rejected a jury’s recommendation of a life sentence will remain on death row for now.

The House Judiciary Committee Wednesday rejected HB 27, sponsored by Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, which would have retroactively applied a 2017 law that ended judicial override.

The vote was 9-4, with all Republicans present for the meeting voting against the measure and all four Democrats voting for it.

“I think, to a certain degree, it is an honest philosophical difference in the purpose of sentencing, capital punishment, and how people are sentenced to death in Alabama,” England said to reporters following the meeting.

The Alabama Legislature in 2017 passed legislation sponsored by former Sen. Dick Brewbaker, R-Pike Road, that barred judges from sentencing a person to death for capital murder if the jury recommended life without the possibility of parole.

England proposed legislation that same year that would have not only prohibited judicial override, like the bill proposed by Brewbaker, but also made it retroactive. England’s 2017 bill would have also required unanimous jury verdicts to impose the death penalty. Alabama currently requires 10 of 12 jurors to impose capital punishment.

England’s bill did not pass.

Since then, England has filed legislation seeking to restore the two elements that were left out of his original proposal. Former Alabama Govs. Robert Bentley, a Republican, and Don Siegelman, a Democrat, both voiced support for HB 27 in a statement to al.com.

The legislation would apply to 33 people currently sentenced to death. As of February, there were 169 people — 164 men and five women — on Alabama’s death row, according to the Alabama Department of Corrections.

Opposition fell into two camps, with many unwilling to review the cases to challenge what the court believed is an appropriate punishment.

“The law that was in effect at that time allowed for judicial override, and these judges, in their discretion, overrode,” said Rep. Jim Hill, R-Odenville, chair of the Judiciary Committee. “Consequently, it is very difficult for me to second guess, or in effect, override, that which the judge overrode.”

Others said those sentenced to death deserved it.

“Remember the impact on the victim and their families,” said Rep. Jerry Starnes, R-Prattville as he read out three murder cases that involved robbery or sexual assault.

England then told members he sympathized with the victims and that he has experience with losing people to violence.

“As an attorney, I have a keen respect for the process, the procedure of law,” he said. “Even if I don’t like the result, I have to respect it.”

But England also noted that in judicial override sentences, “the jury heard exactly what the circumstances of those incidents were, and they decided those individuals deserved life without parole.”

The jury that convicted Kenneth Eugene Smith, executed by nitrogen gas earlier this year for his role in the 1988 murder-for-hire of Elizabeth Sennett, originally recommended he be sentenced to life without parole. The trial judge imposed the death penalty.

“I don’t think it is any secret I am not a fan of the death penalty, and if this law had been in effect, if judicial override was illegal in Alabama, Alabama would not have been the first state to gas someone to death,” England said.

England said that, without accusing Hill, a former judge, that judgeships are political positions. He noted that it was “politically popular” for some judges to sentence someone to death because it became, ‘I am not soft on crime.’”

Despite the loss, England said he will continue to propose legislation to address those who remain on death row because of judicial override.

“I am going to keep pushing that rock up the hill,” he said.