A 2016 investigation by the Alabama Public Radio news team may be getting a fresh look as Governor Kay Ivey considers the fate of two dozen people sentenced to death through the state’s now abolished policy known as “judicial override.” APR focused on the policy during its national award-winning program “…and justice for all.” Months later, Ivey ended the policy where judges could overrule juries recommendations of life in prison in favor of the death penalty. That saved a number of inmates, but not all.
Now, Ivey is being urged to make her decision retroactive.
Back in 2017, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has signed a bill ending the state’s one-of-a-kind practice of allowing judges to sentence a person to death when a jury has recommended life imprisonment. Ivey spokeswoman Eileen Jones confirmed the move. Alabama was the last state in the country to allow judges to override a jury when sentencing capital murder cases. Montgomery Republican Sen. Dick Brewbaker sponsored a version of the bill and says it is in the interest of justice. It passed the House last week after a rare showing of bipartisan support in the Republican-controlled legislature.
The legislation, at that time, applied to future capital cases and not affect the 183 inmates currently on Alabama’s death row, at that time. The Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative says Alabama judges have overridden jury recommendations 112 times since 1976 during the time the policy was in effect.
Now, nearly ten years later, Ivey expand her decision for the remaining twenty five inmates on death row because of judicial override. If that happens, it could be one of the last acts she takes as governor. But, it’s not a given.
AL.com reports Ivey already set the record for an Alabama Governor by approving the most executions at twenty six. She also oversaw the state’s move from trouble-filled lethal injections to the use of nitrogen hypoxia, which sent shockwaves from Montgomery to around the world as a method considered by critics to be experimental and controversial. The first execution by nitrogen suffocation was in January of 2024.
