Twelve People Decided. One Judge Overruled Them.

Al.com has a new piece out on Alabama's judicial override cases, and the question in the headline is the right one: will Governor Ivey side with the jurors?

Here's the part that still stops people cold when they hear it. Alabama abolished judicial override in 2017. Governor Ivey signed the bill herself, in her first days in office. The message was clear — in a capital case, the sentence belongs to the jury, not to a single elected judge. But the law wasn't made retroactive. So 25 people remain on Alabama's death row today under a sentencing scheme this state has already declared wrong. Several of them had juries that voted unanimously for life.

These aren't close calls about guilt or innocence. They're about whether a verdict means anything. Twelve citizens listened to the evidence, deliberated, and chose life. One judge said no.

Governor Ivey leaves office in January. She has the clemency power to finish the work she started in 2017 — to bring these sentences in line with the law Alabama already has on its books, while keeping every one of these men in prison for the rest of their lives.

Read the piece. Then tell her.

https://tinyurl.com/4bu9t7at