| Besides, being seen with
you may strike him as an economic, social, and political
liability in a state where professional advancement
to the bench depends entirely upon the will of the
electorate.
Come trial time, there’s a good chance that
you’ll be the only
person of color in the courtroom. All 19 of Alabama’s
appellate court judges are white, as are 41 of its
42 elected District Attorneys. Odds are 1 in 3 that
your jury will be all white as well.
Since Alabama’s resumption of the death penalty
in 1975, courts have found that prosecutors illegally
excluded black people from serving as jurors in at
least 28 capital cases.
Statistics outline the grim results of Alabama’s
systemic judicial inequities in irrefutable black
and white. Its death row population has doubled in
the past decade, with an overall death-sentencing
rate that is 3-10 times greater than that of other
Southern states. Though black
people account for only 26% of Alabama’s
population overall, nearly 63% of its prisoners are
black. Of the 23 people executed in Alabama between
1975 and 2001, 70%
were black.
These figures get a boost from a local law that allows
an elected judge to reject a jury’s verdict
of life and unilaterally sentence a prisoner to death.
Nearly 22% of the people sitting on Alabama’s
death row were initially handed life sentences by
their juries. Once convicted to death row, prisoners
have no
right to counsel. Those that do receive permission
to seek legal recourse are faced with the nearly impossible
task of attracting a lawyer who will work with a state-imposed
$1,000
salary cap.
By representing dozens of the condemned men, women,
and juveniles currently facing execution, the Equal
Justice Initiative of Alabama (EJI), a non-profit
organization based in Montgomery, works against this
tide. While their victories have not yet added up
to the top-to-bottom overhaul Alabama’s judicial
system needs, they have been significant.
EJI won
most of the 23 cases in the last decade where
convictions were reversed after it was proven that
prosecutors illegally excluded black people from jury
service. This past January, it obtained Alabama’s
first judgment barring imposition of the death penalty
for a death row prisoner because of mental retardation.
Several
more successes this spring earned death row prisoners
represented by EJI new trials or cleared the way for
them to appeal their convictions.
“It’s very tempting to look tough on
crime in Alabama,” says Bryan
Stevenson, EJI’s Executive Director, and
Professor of Clinical Law at NYU School of Law. “A
judge comes up for re-election every 4-6 years, and
since the state went red 20 years ago, the pressure
is really on.” He explains that this is one
of the factors behind the high percentage of judicial
overrides. “A very partisan electoral process
like Alabama’s, that forces candidates to adhere
to popular opinion, never plays out well for people
who are disadvantaged or disfavored.”
But where are all of those ardent supporters of the
so-called “culture of life” when it comes
to the routine execution of citizens who face inadequate
counsel in a biased system?
“There’s been a stunning silence from
people who talk about the value of life when it comes
to these issues,” Stevenson sighs. “And
this is disingenuous. We don’t have to execute
people to protect public safety. While the Pope is
explicit about being against execution, American political
leadership, including Catholic leadership, is not
only silent, but also resistant to any portion of
the ‘culture of life’ that refers to the
death penalty. The black church, which has given us
a great deal of support, and communities of color
have been the exceptions.”
Beyond EJI’s life-and-death issues lies an
even larger bête noir: the systematic
perversion of states’ rights. Right-wingers
emboldened by a solid Republican grip on power are
using states’ rights rhetoric to attack everything
from Roe v. Wade to gay rights. Retrograde
lawmakers and lobbying groups are seeking to undermine
the US Constitution and innumerable federal laws enacted
to ensure that all states grant their citizens full
civil rights.
Stevenson speaks not just from professional experience,
but from personal experience as well when he says
that most reforms in Alabama have happened on the
federal level: he grew up attending “colored”
schools whose separate and unequal structure was mandated
by state law until the federal government intervened.
“The ugly underside of limiting the power of
the federal government,” he warns, “is
allowing states to do ALL that they want. If the politics
of the locality prevail, and are unchecked by some
kind of oversight, we are really in a lot of trouble.”
And what might Alabama do without federal oversight,
guided only by the will of the majority?
Exhibit A: In last November’s election, 51%
of Alabama’s voters
upheld a statewide referendum to keep segregation-era
wording which required separate schools for “white
and colored children” in its constitution.
Just this past June, when the Senate’s resolution
apologizing for not
passing anti-lynching legislation reached the
floor, Jeff Sessions (R-AL) was one
of only four senators who insisted that a recorded
vote not be taken. Richard Shelby (R-AL) was one
of only 13 senators who went on record opposing
it.
Against the odds and the political tide, Stevenson
and his
staff continue to work with community groups,
lawyers, the church, and the media to reform Alabama’s
criminal justice system. He is inspired by his memories
of the 50s and 60s — “a time when young
people advocating for a different America could say,
‘we don’t have power or resources, but
we have moral integrity and we think you should be
ashamed.’”
Stevenson still follows the credo of those times
— that one should judge the civility of a society
not by how it treats the wealthy, but by how it treats
the poor and disadvantaged and disfavored. “If
you want to talk about democracy and human rights,
you have to confront this,” he says.
“What we’re doing to disadvantaged and
disfavored people in the name of protecting ourselves
is horrible, and it says something about our character.”
Nancy
Goldstein’s column appears on Raw Story every
other Thursday. She can be reached at goldstein.nancy@gmail.com.
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