Senators vote for Ala. death penalty moratorium

MONTGOMERY — For the third time in five years, a state Senate committee has voted in favor of a moratorium on executions in Alabama, but the proposal again faces an uncertain future.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 6-1 Wednesday for a bill by Democratic Sen. Hank Sanders of Selma that would institute a three-year moratorium. During the moratorium, the state would make sure the death penalty is being administered fairly and impartially.

Sanders’ bill now goes to the Senate, where similar legislation approved by the committee failed in 2005 and 2006. Sanders also sponsored moratorium legislation in 2007 and 2008, but those bills died in the Judiciary Committee without coming to a vote.

Senate President Pro Tem Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, voted for Sanders’ bill in committee Wednesday and rated its chances of passing the Senate as ``a toss-up.‘’

Sanders and several groups opposing the death penalty held a rally on the steps of the Statehouse in January to push the legislation, which they have been trying to pass since 2001.

Sanders, an attorney, said there is a growing concern about the fairness of the death penalty in Alabama, particularly a provision that allows a judge to impose a death sentence when a jury recommends a sentence of life in prison without parole.

Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, voted against Sanders’ bill in committee. Orr, an attorney, said a death sentence carries automatic appeals and is reviewed in both state and federal courts. If a conviction is upheld in state and federal courts, then a death-row inmate can start a new round of appeals by arguing that his attorney was ineffective during the trial, he said.

``There are adequate safeguards in the law as it stands today,‘’ Orr said.

In addition to approving Sanders’ moratorium bill, the committee voted 5-3 for his companion bill that would bring Alabama’s death penalty law in line with a U.S. Supreme Court decision that prohibits the death penalty for people who were under 18 when they committed their crimes. That bill now goes to the Senate.