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A bill sponsored by Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham, would require law enforcement agencies grant access to body camera footage if requested.
House Bill 10, pre-filed for the 2025 legislative session, would require the release of law enforcement body or dashboard camera footage to the subject of said footage or their “personal representative” within six months of a request to do so.
Subjects of bodycam footage are currently allowed to request access to footage that includes their image or voice based on legislation sponsored by Givan, which was passed in 2023.
Law enforcement agencies are allowed to deny these requests at their discretion and are not obligated to provide justification for withholding it.
HB10 would require that the footage’s release is not delayed upon a request to do so, “unless the disclosure would substantially interfere with the investigation or prosecution.”
Upon receiving a request, law enforcement must disclose the relevant footage or provide “the specific basis” for why they deemed temporarily withholding the footage necessary.
The agency must then reassess their justification for withholding footage after 30 days. They must continue to do so every 30 days, taking no more than six months to deliver footage to requestees.
HB10 allows law enforcement agencies to charge those who request footage a “reasonable fee” for the redaction and editing of footage into only what is relevant to the requestee.
Two bills were introduced to require release of body camera footage in 2024 in response to protests and public outcry concerning the 2023 killings of two Black men by law enforcement officers.
Law enforcement agencies repeatedly denied requests from families to view bodycam footage concerning the death of Stephen Perkins, who was killed in his front yard by a Decatur Police officer, and Jawan Dallas, who died after being tased by Mobile police.
Bodycam footage for the Dallas case was shown to his family four and a half months after his death, after the charges against the police officers involved were dropped by a Mobile grand jury.
Dallas’s family filed a civil suit against the city of Mobile in November 2023, seeking $36 million in damages. The suit is still ongoing.
An ordinance requiring family members be sent reasoning for withholding footage if deemed necessary by law enforcement was adopted by the Mobile City Council in January.
Bodycam footage of Perkins’ death, meanwhile, was leaked by conservative media outlet 1819 News in March.
A statement released by the Perkins family said that, while they had received access to the bodycam footage prior to its leaking, “The release of this information should have come from the proper authorities, in the proper manner, so the information could be viewed objectively in the spirit of transparency and accountability.”
In 2024, Givan sponsored HB41, a bill to make disclosing footage mandatory.
Givan described HB41 in relation to the legislation she passed in 2023 as, “a further enhancement to get us closer to true and fair transparency.”
Sen. Merika Coleman, D-Birmingham, also backed legislation concerning bodycam footage during the 2024 legislative session.
Senate Bill 14, sponsored by Coleman, would have required footage be released to the public record within 30 days of a request to view it.
In a press release where Coleman dubbed the bill the Jawan Dallas and Stephen Perkins Act she said, “The amount of time folks have waited just doesn’t work. And it creates more tension between police and the community.”
Coleman’s legislation received criticism for the 30-day timeline it mandated, as well as for requiring the footage be made publicly available.
Givan was among Democrats who criticized Coleman’s legislation, saying that requiring footage be made a part of public record is automatically opposed by most Republican lawmakers.
Making bodycam footage public record was rejected by the Alabama Supreme Court in a 2021, which ruled that investigative footage and materials are exempt from disclosure requirements.
The trial date for Mac Marquette, the former Decatur Police officer charged with murder for the death of Perkins is set for April 7, 2025.
If passed, HB10 would go into effect Oct. 1, 2025.
