The governor in November directed the state prison system to undertake a “top-to-bottom” review of death penalty procedures after the state was forced to cancel three lethal injections because of problems with intravenous lines.
It took three hours for the state of Alabama to execute Joe Nathan James Jr. last month. The state autopsy won’t be available for months. One reporter conducted an independent autopsy.
In Alabama, Blacks make up more than half of the state's inmate population. Some law professionals say racial bias spans from over policing of Black neighborhoods to criminal sentencing.
A group of law school faculty members and former prosecutors has written Gov. Kay Ivey urging her to have the state Board of Pardons and Paroles hold expedited hearings to reduce the risk of COVID-19 to Alabama’s prison population.
Prisons will be a top issue in the upcoming legislative session. The state Department of Corrections presented its budget request Thursday, along with the Bureau of Pardons and Paroles.
Advocates and relatives of Alabama prisoners called on Gov. Kay Ivey's criminal justice study group to implement reforms. Concerns at Wednesday's meeting ranged from violent prison conditions to the lack of re-entry services.
Gov. Kay Ivey and the Alabama Department of Corrections aren’t yet talking publicly about possible fixes for the state’s crowded and aging prisons, but they are extending a multimillion-dollar contract with an outside project manager to study construction needs.