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Birmingham News - Alabama Democrats divided on whether Obama can win presidency.

AL.com - Columnist Robin DeMonia uses court filings by Attorney General to argue that Governor does have the power to order post-conviction DNA testing, but “either he doesn’t want to, or he doesn’t have the guts.”

Birmingham News - The Birmingham News argues that a separate board is needed to oversee state’s postsecondary educational system.

Birmingham News - Commentary contends that expansion of state’s pre-k programs would be a great investment for Alabama.

Mobile Press-Register - Attorney General records duet with Johnny Cash.

Montgomery Advertiser - Preservationists, RSA battle over plans for former Supreme Court building on Dexter Avenue.

Tuscaloosa News - “Alabama Exposure,” Dana Beyerle’s weekly political roundup for readers of the NYTimes regional papers.

Decatur Daily - Sen. Linda Coleman (D-Birmingham)  proposes limits on bank overdraft charges.

Times Daily - Alabama , 23 other states, gear up for “Super Tuesday.”

Times Daily - The Times Daily calls on legislature to review and upgrade juror compensation.

Washington Post -    U.S. Supreme Court to hear arguments tomorrow contending that lethal injections procedures violate constitutional protections.

FROM TODAY’S ANNISTON STAR:
As the nation ponders the death penalty, Alabama presses ahead
By Markeshia Ricks
Star Capitol Correspondent
01-06-2008
Alabama wants James Harvey Callahan to die.

Callahan was sentenced to death for the 1982 rape and murder of Jacksonville State University student Rebecca Howell, but still his life continues on death row.

He would have been Alabama’s first execution of the year, but the federal courts are standing in the way.

Callahan’s execution was stayed, along with those of two other death row inmates, pending the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in a Kentucky case that questions whether strapping a person to a white-sheeted gurney and injecting him with life-draining drugs is cruel and unusual punishment.

As the Supreme Court considers that case, the nation is taking a hard look at the death penalty. One state, New Jersey, decided last month to do away with the death penalty entirely.

With 200 inmates on death row, Alabama has one of the largest death-row inmate populations per capita, and the state’s executive branch is determined to carry out the executions.

It’s a position that most local lawmakers say they support. Some even want the death penalty expanded as punishment for more crimes than capital murder, and they want executions carried out more swiftly.

Tara Hutchison, spokeswoman for Gov. Bob Riley, said there are no plans to change the state’s execution strategy because Riley believes “that some crimes are so monstrous that they deserve the ultimate punishment.”

Business as usual

The view that some crimes are so horrendous that they should be punishable by death earned Alabama, along with Oklahoma, a second-place ranking in the nation for the number of executions in 2007, according to a recent report from the Death Penalty Information Center.

Both states executed three people last year. Texas executed 26.

Alabama would have had more executions if the state had been allowed to carry out the scheduled December executions of Tom Arthur and Daniel Siebert. Both executions were stayed.

Local legislators say they understand that statistics show that the threat of death doesn’t deter people from committing capital crimes. But, they say, the penalty does ensure one thing: The person who receives it won’t commit another crime.

Rep. Lea Fite, D-Jacksonville, said until the U.S. Supreme Court makes its decision, the state’s use of lethal injection “should be business as usual.”

People in Fite’s district have waited more than 25 years for the execution of Callahan. Fite said his constituents support the death penalty, and so does he.

“I don’t want an innocent person to be put to death, but if the person is guilty of a heinous crime I don’t have a problem with it,” he said.

Fite’s not alone among area legislators in his support of the death penalty.

Sen. Del Marsh, R-Anniston, said he would not support a New Jersey-style abolition of the death penalty in favor of life in prison without parole.

“I just believe that there has to be a penalty to pay for those who choose to take other people’s lives,” Marsh said.

Quicker, and more

While there appears to be bi-partisan support for the state’s death penalty, local legislators don’t think it’s perfect.

Most agree that greater access to DNA testing would ensure that the state is penalizing the right person. Some, like Fite, say the state should invest more in it.

Sen. Kim Benefield, D-Woodland, said while she wouldn’t be interested in sponsoring any legislation to abolish the death penalty, she wouldn’t mind if the state Legislature revised some positions, particularly regarding DNA testing.

“Having come from the court system, I know that every case is an individual case,” Benefield said. “The last thing I would want to see is an innocent person executed.”

Several local legislators say the biggest issue for them is that it often takes too long to execute people. Some legislators also would favor extending the penalty to more crimes.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, the average time between sentencing and execution for those executed in 2006 was 12.1 years.

The last three people Alabama tried to execute had been on death row more than 20 years. Sen. Jim Preuitt, D-Talladega says that’s too long.

“When the death penalty is imposed, it still takes 15 to 20 years for it to be carried out, which means it may not be very effective as a penalty,” Preuitt said. “I believe due process ought to work, and people should have their appeals, but if anything, we need to get tougher.”

Assistant Attorney General Clay Crenshaw said the normal appeals process for any inmate has three stages and goes through 10 courts — and that’s too long.

“It’s common for each court to take five or six years to decide a case, so it’s becoming normal for a case to take 15 to 20 years,” he said. “These cases should be the highest priority.”

Rep. Randy Wood, R-Anniston, said the state has to find a way to speed up the process.

“It’s a shame that it takes 25 and 30 years,” he said. “People die of old age before they’re executed.”

Wood said not only should justice for victims’ families be speedier, but he wants Alabama’s death penalty applied to sex offenders who prey on children and is looking at introducing legislation to make that so.

He’s not the only local legislator thinking along those lines.

Rep. Steve Hurst, D-Munford, supports the application of the death penalty as it stands and wants sex offenders who molest children under the age of 12 to be subject to the death penalty and surgical castration.

Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas already allow people to be put to death for raping children, but the Supreme Court is looking at a Louisiana case that could again throw a monkey wrench into proposals to expand Alabama’s death penalty.

Problems abound

Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative of Alabama, said instead of attempting to expand the death penalty, legislators should concentrate on fixing a broken criminal justice system.

“I don’t think there is any question that Alabama has been negligent in its attention to making sure that death sentences are applied fairly and responsibly,” Stevenson said. “I think when politicians don’t commit themselves to competent, reliable and fair use of the death penalty, it becomes political in way that should not be acceptable.”

Stevenson said Alabama is the only state in the nation that allows elected trial judges to override jury recommendations of life in prison.

Alabama also does not provide any legal representation to death-row inmates, which Stevenson said can be crucial in post-conviction appeals.

“Politicians like to traffic in the politics of fear and anger and use bad crimes to sustain bad policies, but crime still persists,” he said.

Eric Ferrero, director of communications for the Innocence Project, said instead of fear-mongering, states like Alabama need to get serious about reform measures such as providing adequate legal services and using DNA testing in all criminal cases to prevent wrongful conviction.

While the Innocence Project has no position on whether there should be a death penalty, it is advocating for DNA testing for Tom Arthur with little traction from the state officials; but both Stevenson and Ferrero see that as part of the larger issue for Alabama.

“This is an issue that needs political leadership, and it requires people to do without the immediate political gain that politicians are used to in this state,” Stevenson said.

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