ORIGINAL REPORT

WASHINGTON — Just six days before his scheduled execution, the lawyer for Christopher Brooks has asked the Alabama Supreme Court to put Brooks's execution on hold so the court can assess whether its capital sentencing laws remain constitutional following this week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down Florida’s capital sentencing scheme.

Alabama, like Florida, places the final decision of whether to impose death on the judge — not a jury. On Jan. 12, the U.S. Supreme Court held that "Florida’s sentencing scheme, which required the judge alone to find the existence of an aggravating circumstance, is therefore unconstitutional."

Since that ruling, Alabama officials have defended their state's law as having been previously upheld as constitutional and as being distinguishable from the part of the Florida law struck down this week. Criminal defense attorneys have said otherwise, and now — in Brooks's case — one of those lawyers is asking the Alabama Supreme Court to step in.

"Mr. Brooks’ death sentence might be unconstitutional under Hurst v. Florida and, if it is unconstitutional, he is entitled to relief," the lawyer for Brooks wrote, referring to this week's decision. "Mr. Brooks' death sentence should not be carried out while critical questions concerning the constitutionality of Alabama's capital sentencing scheme remain unanswered."

Brooks was sentenced to death in 1993 for the 1992 murder of Jo Deann Campbell, a sentence imposed by Judge James Hard. The jury had recommended a death sentence to the judge on an 11-1 vote.



"Mr. Brooks respectfully requests that this Court temporarily stay his execution currently scheduled for January 21, 2016, direct the parties to present briefs on the applicability of Hurst, and undertake a thorough consideration of Hurst's impact on Alabama’s capital sentencing scheme," attorney Leslie S. Smith, from the Federal Defenders' Office in the Middle District of Alabama, wrote in the petition to the Alabama Supreme Court.



After detailing at length the comparisons between the Florida and Alabama death sentencing laws, the Friday filing for Brooks cites to a friend-of-the-court brief filed by Alabama's own lawyers in the Florida case, stating that the arguments made by the state there showed it "recognized that the Supreme Court’s rejection of Florida’s sentencing scheme ... would mean that Alabama's nearly identical scheme would almost certainly fail to meet constitutional standards."

Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange’s office, however, maintains that the state’s death sentencing statute — which only requires the judge to give “consideration” to the jury’s sentencing recommendation — remains constitutional.