former governor Don Siegelman We are calling on Alabama leaders, including Gov. Kay Ivey, to halt Thursday's execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith, and their decision not to intervene will lead to the crisis Ivey and others are currently facing. Several executions took place while he was governor, saying he hopes he doesn't have to live with similar regrets.
Mr. Siegelman commented in an interview: This week's Alabama politics podcast, for episodes released Thursday morning. The former governor spoke on his long show about his time in federal prison and the convictions that he and many others still claim were politically motivated, highlighting “the many injustices in the system.” He said he let him open it.
“I didn't issue pardons,” Siegelman said of his time as governor. “When I heard the word 'guilty,' I immediately thought of the people who came to me and asked me to save them. I will do everything I can for them and as governor. I silently prayed for my failure to do so.
“It's not easy to live together.”
Siegelman said he and another lawyer recently had a class at Georgetown Law School take a closer look at death penalty statistics, and also had the class take a closer look at the people who asked him for clemency. The results were not easily accepted, he said.
In addition to showing that one innocent death row inmate is acquitted for every eight executions, Professor Siegelman will also discuss how we arrive at judicial annulments in this class. He said a dark history has been revealed. Sentence someone to death – and a non-unanimous jury verdict.
“They are a relic of Jim Crow,” the former governor said. “When black people, especially in the South, won the right to vote and serve on juries, the white people in charge decided that they were unlikely to agree to (unjustly) putting black people to death. So they decided that these We have created a workaround.”
Siegelman noted that federal courts have now ruled that both processes are unconstitutional, and that Alabama has passed a law abolishing judicial override. This is especially important in Mr. Smith's case because he is one of only 31 people on Alabama's death row due to judicial malpractice.
“The simple fact is that this gentleman is still a human being, even though some may be offended by calling someone convicted of murder a 'gentleman.' It shouldn’t be,” Siegelman said. “The jury in his case voted 11-1 for life in prison and release. But we didn't retroactively enact the laws we passed. That doesn't make sense.”
Siegelman said he hopes Ivey or a federal court will one day step in and do the right thing. If he doesn't, he said, he will regret it for the rest of his life.
