Alabama Department of Corrections

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey appointed a corrections deputy as head of the state parole board, replacing the outgoing chair who led the board during a period of few releases. Ivey appointed Hal Nash, the chief corrections deputy of the Jackson County Sheriff's Office, as the new chairman of the three-person Board of Pardons and Paroles. He replaces Leigh Gwathney, whose term expired. Nash's appointment is effective immediately.

Alabama has scheduled a September execution by nitrogen gas for a man convicted of killing a convenience store clerk during a 1997 robbery. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey set a Sept. 25 execution date for Geoffrey Todd West. West, now 49, is on the death row for killing Margaret Parrish Berry. Prosecutors said West drove to Harold's Chevron in Attalla with plans to rob the store where he once worked. Berry, 33, was shot in the back of the head while lying on the floor behind the counter, prosecutors said.

A federal appeals court ruled Alabama prosecutors violated the constitutional rights of a man sentenced to death in 1990, saying Blacks were rejected from the jury during his trial. The Monday ruling from a three judge panel on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals means Michael Sockwell, 62, is eligible for a retrial.

A man on Alabama's death row wants his execution to go forward this week, saying he believes in an "eye for an eye." James Osgood, 55, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection Thursday at his south Alabama prison.

An Alabama state judge ruled that a lawsuit accusing Alabama prisons of illegally harvesting the organs of people who died while incarcerated will be allowed to proceed. The consolidated lawsuits filed by eight families say that the Alabama Department of Corrections illegally allowed the University of Alabama at Birmingham to study the organs of their deceased incarcerated relatives without the consent of the next of kin.

Incarcerated men in the Alabama prison system risked their safety to feed shocking footage of their horrifying living conditions to a pair of documentary filmmakers. The result is “The Alabama Solution,” which premiered this week at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

Alabama has scheduled its fourth execution by nitrogen gas. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Tuesday set a Feb. 6 execution date for Demetrius Frazier. Her office said the execution will be carried out by nitrogen gas. Frazier was convicted of killing Pauline Brown while burglarizing her Birmingham apartment in 1991.

No state has a longer, more profit-driven history of contracting prisoners out to private companies than Alabama. Best Western, Bama Budweiser and Burger King are among the more than 500 businesses to lease incarcerated workers from one of the most violent, overcrowded and unruly prison systems in the U.S. in the past five years alone,

A correctional officer in Alabama has been arrested on suspicion of smuggling methamphetamine into the maximum-security prison where she worked. A complaint alleges the 48-year-old officer smuggled the drugs into the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore and then distributed it to an incarcerated person.

Two former corrections officers in Alabama have agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges in the death of a mentally ill inmate. Court documents say the incarcerated man, Tony Mitchell, died of hypothermia and sepsis after being locked up at Walker County Jail in 2023.