Alabama’s stance on its extremist immigration law is shifting from defiance to damage control. Gov. Robert Bentley admitted this month that the law needed fixing and promised that he and legislative leaders would do that in next year’s session. His retreat followed a letter from the state’s attorney general, Luther Strange, to legislative leaders suggesting that they throw out whole sections of the law to make it easier to defend in court.

When Mr. Bentley signed the law in June, he ignored warnings from legal experts and civil-rights advocates that it would curtail rights for all Alabamians, criminalize routine business transactions and acts of charity, encourage racial profiling, and cast an unconstitutional chill on school enrollment. The governor and legislators were also warned — apparently not by Mr. Strange — that the law would attract multiple lawsuits and pummel the economy, particularly farming when immigrant workers fled.

The warnings have all come true. After a visiting Mercedes-Benz manager was caught driving without his license and taken to jail as a potential illegal immigrant, Governor Bentley had to reassure foreign investors that they were still welcome. The law has created mass confusion, because nobody knows what it really requires or what parts the court might throw out at any moment. In just one example, some utilities are threatening to shut off customers without the right papers, while others, like Alabama Power, say they would not dream of doing that.

Mr. Strange’s letter came after, as predicted, he spent six months trying to defend the law in court and in public. At one point he even challenged the federal government’s authority to investigate civil-rights abuses committed under the law. A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked parts of the law; most recently, a judge issued a restraining order preventing Alabama from denying trailer-home licenses to people it decides are here illegally.