Alabama is the only state with automatic appeals in death penalty cases to both the state Court of Criminal Appeals and the state Supreme Court. Because a state Supreme Court review of death cases is mandatory, all other states skip the intermediate appellate court. Many prisoners wind up on death row longer than their victims lived. Pryor has been an outspoken advocate for eliminating some steps in the appellate court reviews. We need to demonstrate that the state is serious about this kind of punishment by streamlining the process, he said.
Criminal justice needs to be swift and just.
Stevenson said streamlining court reviews would result in some innocent prisoners being put to death. We have a better judgment about how real that problem is. We'd see a lot more reversals for ineffective counsel if that were the case. Records of court reversals were not immediately available. But Stevenson's office said at least 22 death penalty cases in Alabama have been reversed over the years after it was proved prosecutors illegally excluded black people from jury service.