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A bill that would give incarcerated individuals whose sentence has been enhanced under the Habitual Felony Offender Act a chance to be resentenced has passed out of an Alabama committee.
The Alabama Senate Judiciary Committee heard SB156, sponsored by Sen. Will Barfoot, R-Pike Road, which would allow anyone, who is serving a life without parole sentence, who has not committed a violent crime, to petition the court for a reduced sentence or a sentence of time served.
“It has been dubbed as the Second Chance bill. In essence, it gives a limited number of individuals who are currently in DOC custody, who previously have been charged with life without the possibility of parole, the ability to petition for the judge to hear their case and possibly resentence them,” said Barfoot.
To be eligible for judicial review, the individual must have been sentenced before May 26, 2000, meaning anyone eligible will have served at least 25 years of their sentence. The bill would automatically expire on Oct. 1, 2030, allowing these select individuals five years to file this petition.
Sen. Sam Givhan, R-Huntsville, spoke about the discrepancy in dates between passing the Habitual Felony Offender Act and the adverse effects on some incarcerated individuals.
“I just think it’s fundamentally unfair that somebody that’s been convicted, and I don’t remember what the year is, after 2015, after 2000, that somebody that was recently convicted can get out of jail within 15 years or however many years it is. But for doing the exact same thing before whatever that magical date is, they’re life without and never gonna see the outside of that prison. I just don’t think that’s right,” said Givhan.
The committee addressed how these individuals would come to discover that they were eligible for this petition. Barfoot said he believed that other groups would take on the task of notifying and informing incarcerated individuals of their position and their options.
“I just think it should be the Department of Corrections responsibility to notify those people that are in their custody,” said Sen. Larry Stutts, R-Tuscumbia.
Sen. April Weaver, R-Alabaster, inquired about how victim’s rights groups felt about this legislation, noting that she had spoken to some who did not feel comfortable with the legislation passing. Barfoot noted the “significant language” in the bill that would grant a considerable amount of weight to the victim’s testimony when considering the petition.
Sen. Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, noted that other factors should weigh as important when reviewing these cases where individuals have been incarcerated for a large portion of their lives.
“I don’t want us to be trying and retrying their case after thirty years because if a person has been in prison for thirty years, they’ll change their whole life, possibly. I think we have to put that weight on that also, versus the victim just coming back and saying something, and we try that case, and they have to spend another thirty years,” said Singleton.
The court would consider a handful of additional factors when reviewing the sentence, such as conduct while incarcerated, the underlying offense, age at the time of incarceration and likelihood of success after incarceration based on availability of re-entry programs.
The bill now goes to the full Senate.
