Walking Dead in Alabama
... Only Nebraska and Alabama have the chair as the sole method of execution. ... ” At least 16 of Alabama’s 187 death row inmates were under 18 when they committed their crimes. ... Alabama has not carried out any juvenile executions since it resumed using the electric chair in 1983. ... Wainwright, every defendant has had the right to a lawyer for a trail and a direct appeal, and Alabama pays for such lawyers for poor people, as every other state does. In Alabama, once a person has been convicted and sentenced to death, he or she is no longer entitled to court-appointed legal defense. ... Thirty prisoners on Alabama’s death row have no lawyers to pursue appeals, by far the largest such group in any state. At a time when some other states are considering suspending executions, debating racial disparities in capital convictions or examining the wisdom of executing mentally retarded prisoners, Alabama officials remain firmly opposed to changes in the state’s death penalty system. The lack of appeals lawyers in Alabama is one reason the state has the fastest-growing death row in the country and the second-largest condemned inmates per capita behind Texas. ... Two of Alabama’s 30 death row prisoners, without lawyers, recently came within hours of execution because they missed deadlines for appeals. ... Alabama limits such petitions filed in state court to two years. ... With volunteers in short supply, opponents of the death penalty argue that it is only a matter of time before Alabama executes someone who never had access to the full protection of the legal system. ... The Legal Aid Society has set up a project to recruit out-of-state lawyers to represent Alabama prisoners, but legal advocates say they never know from case to case whether a lawyer can be found for a prisoner whose execution is near.