In Alabama, we execute:

“In 2005, Alabama sentenced more people to death than Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee, combined,” according to John Carroll, dean of the Cumberland School of Law.

Alabama is the only state that does not provide indigent Death Row inmates with counsel. Alabama does not use the technology that could assist the accused, as in the case of recently executed Darrell Grayson, chairman of Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty, in whose case DNA testing could have provided exculpatory evidence.

Alabama has refused to make its lethal injection protocol public. Prejudiced Alabama lawyers handle cases largely comprised of poor racial minorities. The prosecuting attorney referred to Death Row inmate Luther Williams as a “little black rat,” according to trial transcripts examined by the board of Holman prison.

Alabama is scheduled to execute Williams today. Despite the fact Williams turned 20 when still in the ninth grade and had been placed on anti-psychotic drugs, there was no money provided for psychological testing.

Consistent with previous years, the FBI 2004 Uniform Crime Report showed the South has the highest murder rate and accounts for 80 percent of the executions in the United States. Could this mean, as a Southern state, we have a greater responsibility for establishing a moratorium on the death penalty? Yet, we do not educate, we execute. We do not evaluate, we execute. We do not illuminate or elevate, we execute. At least we are consistent.

Diane McNaron

Center Point