In January, outgoing Governor Fob James commuted the...

In January, outgoing Governor Fob James commuted the death sentence of Judith Ann Neelley who as America's longest-serving female death row prisoner had actually been on death row for nearly 16 years. Neelley had been convicted along with her husband of the assault and murder of a teenage girl in 1982. The Governor gave no reason for the commutation. Judith Ann Neelley's conversion to Christianity was repeatedly cited by supporters who convinced the former Governor to commute the death sentence. Outraged by Gov. Fob James' decision, Senator Steve French, R-Birmingham, proposed amending Alabama's constitution to prohibit future Governors from such acts of mercy. Gov. Don Siegelman said he would oppose a bill to strip Governors of the power to commute death sentences, even though he disagreed with his predecessor's last-minute reprieve. When Gov. Fob James commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment, he went against the wishes of 78% of a 402-person sample reached in the Mobile Register/University of South Alabama Poll. Only 12% approved. The commutation from death to life was the first since capital punishment was re-instituted in Alabama in 1976.