Alabama's Death Row: How Delays Impact Victims' Families

Why should someone sit on death row for years and years after committing a heinous crime? In Alabama, it happens way too often, and more here than it seems to in other states.

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Today, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall filed a 16-state coalition letter supporting a rule proposed by the US Department of Justice to help streamline federal review of state Murder convictions. In Alabama, the time it takes to conclude a capital murder case can be longer than 20 years, and federal judicial review is a significant impediment to swift justice.

If you and your family have been impacted by a crime of this magnitude, should you have to wait for decades to see it finally resolved?

I don’t think anyone believes in that. Here are some of the other states joining the Alabama-led mission to speed up the process of Justice: Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Texas.It is time to speed this up and not continue to watch someone sit on death row for years and years and years. I understand that everyone deserves the right to a timely appeal of their conviction. Everyone deserves to have their rights taken seriously, but why does that have to take decades? I don’t believe it does, and I am glad to see that Alabama agrees and is taking action.