Five of the state’s 67 counties account for nearly half of all death sentences imposed since 2012.
By:Ralph Chapoco-December 15, 20257:01 am Article courtesy of: https://alabamareflector.com/
An oxygen mask. Alabama attaches a similar-looking mask to a condemned inmate when conducting executions using nitrogen hypoxia. An Alabama Reflector analysis of death sentences handed down in the state since 2012 found that five of the state’s 67 counties account for nearly half of all death sentences. (Getty Images)
An Alabama Reflector analysis of executions in the state over the past decade shows five of the state’s 67 counties account for almost half of the total number of death sentences imposed since 2012.
The five counties have a population of about 1.7 million people, comprising roughly a third of the state’s total population.
In all, about 23 counties have sentenced at least one person to death since 2012.
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Mobile County had the highest number of death sentences imposed with nine, followed by Madison County with four. Morgan, Jefferson, St. Clair and Calhoun counties each sentenced three people to death.
Russell, Marshall, Escambia and Colbert each had two people who were sentenced to death during that time. Another 13 counties all have one individual sentenced to death.
According to the Reflector’s analysis, Ashley Rich, Mobile County’s district attorney from 2010 to 2023, oversaw eight death sentences.
“There is a lot of different variables that we look at,” Rich said in an interview. “We do not take it lightly at all. If you are asking a jury to hand down a sentence of death, then it is reserved and held for the worst of the worst.”
Robert Broussard, Madison County’s DA, has overseen four. Combined, Rich and Broussard account for a quarter of the death sentences in the state since 2012.
“For the most part, it is up to the individual district attorney whether or not you are seeking the death penalty,” Broussard said in an interview. “Of course I am the boss, I am the one who gets the final say on it, but I am saying is, when a case of a certain magnitude comes up, there is very much a discussion on the case as to whether we believe, ultimately I believe, the death penalty is warranted.”
Experts say cities and more populated areas will see more death sentences because of the resources needed to pursue capital trials. Such trials last longer and require more resources.
“The number one reason why, when you are looking at Texas, you see Harris County, Dallas County, Tarrant County, leading the pack is because those are the biggest counties,” said Jeffrey Newberry, legal clinical supervisor at the University of Houston Law Center. “It is not just because they have the higher populations, it is because they have the bigger district attorneys’ offices and built within them the structure to have these capital trials.”
The largest Alabama counties that have not imposed death sentences since 2012 are Baldwin County in south Alabama (population 261,000) and Montgomery County (population 226,000).
The Alabama Reflector obtained data collected by the Death Penalty Information Center on death sentences dating back more than a decade. The information included the state, county and the year they were sentenced, as well as demographic information such as the person’s ethnicity, gender and, for some years, the race and gender of the victims.
The data was then compiled into a spreadsheet and then analyzed to gauge where and when the death sentences were imposed since 2012.
A decline in death sentences
The use of capital punishment has steadily declined in the United States since its peak in 1996, when 315 death sentences were imposed. That number had fallen to 26 by 2024. Alabama’s yearly death sentences have also declined, from a peak of 25 in 1998 to four in 2024.
But capital punishment remains a defining feature of Alabama’s criminal justice system. Since 2012, the state has sentenced 46 people to death, the fourth highest total in the dataset.
California has sentenced 111 people to death since 2012. But the state has not conducted an execution since 2006. California Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed a moratorium on the use of the death penalty in 2019.
Florida is the state with the next highest total, 102, followed by Texas with 66, then Alabama, then the rust belt state of Ohio with 29. All four states have conducted executions since 2012, though capital punishment is informally suspended in Ohio.
This concentrated application of the death penalty is a pattern that repeats throughout every state that allows for capital punishment. In California, for example, Riverside and Los Angeles counties alone account for almost 60% of the total number of instances that the death penalty was imposed. If the top five counties are included in the analysis, it increases to more than 80%.
In Florida, the state with the second highest total, the top five counties covered about a third of all the death sentences since 2012. In Texas, the top five counties, including Harris County, which contains Houston, comprise almost 44% of the total death sentences. In Ohio, it is 55%.
“There are certain hotspots, but they are not particularly the same areas where there is a lot of crime,” said Frank R. Baumgartner, a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who researches the use of capital punishment. “Also, Baltimore city doesn’t impose the death penalty very much, but Baltimore County, the surrounding suburb does. It is just a strange, arbitrary and capricious system.”
Nearly all the counties in Alabama that have sentenced more than one person to death are majority white. Mobile County has a population that is 56% white. Madison County has a population that is almost two-thirds white. Other counties that have executed three people are St. Clair that has a white population of 85%, Morgan County is 75% white and Calhoun County is 71% white.
The two exceptions are Jefferson and Russell counties, which are 49% and 44% white, respectively.
Local prosecutors also play a major role in death sentences.
“There are a handful of prosecutors that are truly the deadliest prosecutors,” said Corinna Barrett Lain, a law professor at the University of Richmond and author of the book, “Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection.” “If you are asking what distinguishes these counties from neighboring counties where you are not seeing the death penalty, the biggest factor is a handful of especially deadly prosecutors.”
No single model is prescribed for district attorneys. All have different standards and processes when seeking the death penalty.
According to Alabama statute, people are eligible to be sentenced to death if they commit murder on top of an aggravating offense. State statute lists out the 19 offenses, which include kidnapping or robbery in the first degree. A person is also eligible for the death penalty in the death of a law enforcement officer, when killing at least two people or if the victim is younger than 14 years old.
Other factors that make someone eligible for the death penalty include firing a weapon into a building or vehicle and killing a person, or when the victim was issued a protective order by the court.
Absent that, the decision rests with each of the respective district attorneys about how to move forward, and each office uses its own heuristics when deciding. For Rich, she weighs the gruesome nature of the offense.
The prosecutors
Rich and Broussard said in separate interviews that they weigh the circumstances of each case in seeking the death penalty.
Rich said she weighs each case on its circumstances. She cited Derrick Dearman, who was executed in 2024 for his role in five murders in 2018. One of the victims was a pregnant woman. Rich also cited John DeBlase and Heather Keaton, sentenced to death for killing their two children in 2010.
“Clearly, those cases were exceptional cases,” Rich said. “They were especially horrific, gruesome, and they were deserving of the death penalty. That is the common thread; they were especially gruesome.”
Broussard said he thinks carefully about whether he should pursue the death penalty, particularly whether a murder was “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel.”
“If you are in the area where it is a close call, our approach would really be that we don’t seek the death penalty,” Broussard said. “I will be the first to admit, we are, what I consider, a hardline office of law and order and justice. If it was some close call with us, I would think that would translate to the public as being something that the public would probably not be inclined to see as a death penalty case.”
Broussard cited details from two cases that his office was able to secure a death sentence. Warren Hardy was convicted in 2022 of shooting and killing a woman when he tried to steal her vehicle after abducting his estranged girlfriend’s daughter and stepfather who both escaped during the incident.
“He runs to a stranger’s house, the neighbors, and there is a middle-aged woman with a tray of hors d’oeuvres because she is going to a neighborhood party,” Broussard said. “She is at the front door, and he pulls out a pistol and shoots her point blank. Her husband is inside the door, and she goes down with her party tray and has nothing to do with anything. Then dies a slow, painful death from the gunshot wound.”
One of Hardy’s attorneys, John Brinkley, disagreed.
“Capital cases in Alabama consider aggravated circumstances. Here, there was nothing heinous, extraordinary or gruesome about this event,” he said in an interview. “It is always terribly unfortunate for those who were within the zone of danger, at risk or lost a loved one but this case was very unremarkable in comparison to homicide prosecutions.
Broussard also cited Lionel Francis, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 2019 for his role in the shooting death of his 20-month-old daughter. Francis said the shooting was an accident, but according to court documents, the medical examiner said the evidence was consistent with someone shooting the victim while the gun was in contact with the forehead.
Messages were left with Francis’ attorney seeking comment.
A state appeals court later overturned the death sentence, ruling the lower court failed to prove an aggravating factor beyond a reasonable doubt that made Francis eligible for the death penalty.
He was resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Critics argue that nearly all cases that involve murder have one element that can be considered cruel, unusual or heinous.
“There was actually a challenge under Arizona law where a study was done, and 98% of all first-degree murders qualified as capital murder,” Lain said.
With that standard in place, a death sentence is then left to the individual district attorneys, which some consider arbitrary; the standard in one jurisdiction will be different in others.
“If you want to argue that it is arbitrary, you can argue that it is arbitrary in different jurisdictions, comparing one jurisdiction to another, I will not argue with you then,” Broussard said. “It may be random if you commit a certain murder, and you happen to be in X jurisdiction, and that exact murder in Y jurisdiction is viewed differently, I will not argue that.”
Rich said that district attorneys are trusted to make that judgement.
“That is the reason people elect district attorneys,” she said. “They trust the person they elect to make that decision, and I was elected by the people of Mobile County to take a firm stance prosecuting capital murder cases.”
Broussard said it is not arbitrary in the same county, particularly in his jurisdiction.
“I guarantee you that I can point to the circumstance of it that makes it fundamentally different from cases we don’t seek the death penalty on,” Broussard said. “We don’t take it lightly. It is not some badge of honor to rack up death penalties.”
