Former Alabama Govs now urge the commutation of most of Alabama’s death row

Through this recent Washington Post opinion piece, headlined “We oversaw executions as governor. We regret it.”, former Alabama governors Robert Bentley and Don Siegelman explain why they would now be eager to commute most of the state’s death row. Here are excerpts from the start and end of the piece:

Alabama has 167 people on death row, a greater number per capita than in any other state. As far as the two of us are concerned, that is at least 146 people too many. Here’s why.

As former Alabama governors, we have come over time to see the flaws in our nation’s justice system and to view the state’s death penalty laws in particular as legally and morally troubling. We both presided over executions while in office, but if we had known then what we know now about prosecutorial misconduct, we would have exercised our constitutional authority to commute death sentences to life….

As governors, we had the power to commute the sentences of all those on Alabama’s death row to life in prison. We no longer have that constitutional power, but we feel that careful consideration calls for commuting the sentences of the 146 prisoners who were sentenced by non-unanimous juries or judicial override, and that an independent review unit should be established to examine all capital murder convictions.

We missed our chance to confront the death penalty and have lived to regret it, but it is not too late for today’s elected officials to do the morally right thing.

This piece perhaps provides yet another data point in support of the so-called “Marshall hypothesis,” the idea Justice Thurgood Marshall articulated in his Furman opinion that persons learning more about the administration and effects of capital punishment will come to reject it.  It also provides another data point for the reality that it seems much easier for politicians to turn against the death penalty once they are former office holders.