Alabama: Attorney general, DAs back bill to speed up death penalty appeals Alabama flag Attorney General Luther Strange and state prosecutors are backing a proposal to speed up death penalty appeals, a review process that they said can now stretch out for decades. Its important for the victims that justice is done and done in a timely basis. We have people on our death row today that have been there since 1982, Strange said. The attorney general and prosecutors discussed the proposed legislation with members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees during a joint meeting of the committees. The bill will be introduced in the session that begins Jan. 14. The proposal would streamline the appeals process so direct appeals of trial issues and Rule 32 appeals -- post-conviction appeals that look at other issues such as the trial lawyers competence - would run on a dual track. Currently, Rule 32 appeals dont begin until after those first direct appeals have been exhausted. There have been 55 executions since Alabama brought back the death penalty in 1983. The average stay on death row is a little over 16 years, according to the Alabama Department of Corrections. The longest-serving death row inmate in Alabama has been there for about 34 years. Arthur Lee Giles, who was sentenced to death in 1979 when he was 19 years old. The inmates currently on death row have been there an average of 13 years. Madison County District Attorney Robert L Broussard said he estimated the streamlined appeal process would cut the time between sentencing and execution down to 10 years. Broussard said the Alabama proposal is similar to what has been done in Texas. Strange said its also similar to the process in Virginia. Broussard said he believes it is unfair to victims families to wait 15 years or more for a death sentence to be carried out and to go through years of court proceedings. You talk about cruel and unusual punishment. You are dragging them into the courthouse 15 years after the fact on frivolous motions, Broussard said. The streamlined process would also be good for defendants, he argued. It absolutely guarantees the rights of the accused and in some ways increases the rights of the accused because everything is done in a more timely fashion, Broussard said. However, Birmingham Lisa Borden, who does pro bono legal work focused on representation of indigent death row inmates in post-conviction proceedings, vehemently disagreed. Borden said the change might increase the pace of executions. But you certainly cut down on the fairness and the justice, Borden said Borden said a defendant might not know all of the issues for a Rule 32 appeal until those 1st tier appeals are exhausted. Borden said there are other issues that drag out appeals such as inmates having no right to counsel during those post-conviction appeals. Defendants are also often overcharged with capital cases, she argued. Any poor person who commits a murder gets charged with a capital offense,Borden said. Source: al, November 2, 2013 Read more: deathpenaltynews.blogspot/2013/11/alabama-attorney-general-das-back-bill.html#ixzz2jbjm8Uue
Posted on: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 18:15:30 +0000
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