ALABAMA---death sentenced overturned
Court says judge erred in overriding jury
recommendation
The Alabama Supreme Court has reversed the death
sentence given to a
convicted robber and murderer, partly because the
judge did not go along
with the jury's recommended sentence of life in
prison without parole.
The Supreme Court ruled Friday that Jefferson
County Circuit Judge Alfred
Bahakel should have gone along with the jury's
recommendation, on a 10-2
vote, that Taurus Carroll be sentenced to life in
prison without parole.
Carroll was convicted of capital murder in the
1995 robbery and murder of
Betty Long, owner of a Birmingham dry-cleaning
business.
The court's decision follows last month's
decision by the U.S. Supreme
Court, in an Arizona case, that juries and not
judges must decide whether
a person is sentenced to death. That ruling
immediately affected more
than 160 killers in 5 states where the judge, not
the jury, sentences
inmates.
The courts did not immediately address what the
effect would be in states
like Alabama where the jury makes a sentencing
recommendation, but the
final decision is made by the judge.
The Alabama Supreme Court decision in the Carroll
case, written by
Justice Champ Lyons, did not mention the Arizona
case. But, in a
concurring opinion, Chief Justice Roy Moore said
he was going along with
the rest of the court because of the U.S. Supreme
Court decision. About
40 to 45 of Alabama's 187 death row inmates were
sentenced to death by
the trial judge after the jury had recommended
life without parole.
The Court of Criminal Appeals originally reversed
Carroll's death
sentence, saying Bahakel gave too much
consideration to the fact that
Carroll had been convicted earlier as a youthful
offender. After a 2nd
sentencing hearing, Bahakel again sentenced
Carroll to death and the
Court of Criminal Appeals upheld that sentence.
But the Supreme Court said Bahakel should have
given more attention to
the jury's recommendation and to the fact that
the victim's family had
recommended a life without parole sentence.
"Here we have overwhelming support of a sentence
of life imprisonment
without the possibility of parole, as evidenced
by the jury's vote of
10-2 for such a sentence," Lyons said.
(source: Associated Press)
