SUMMARY: On this Wednesday morning, News 5, hosted by Shamani Baker and Simone Sherro, discusses various topics including current foggy road conditions and key news stories. The U.S. Postal Service resumes accepting international parcels from China and Hong Kong after a brief suspension related to tariffs. Pensacola police investigate a fatal crash on the Bayou Tahar Bridge. Dustin High School is considering a four-day school week, with strong community support. A Veterans Treatment Center in Mobile plans to expand, addressing high rates of opioid overdoses and suicides among veterans. Baldwin County allocates $4 million for infrastructural improvements.

The USPS lifts the suspension on packages from China and Hong Kong, a Northwest Florida school could have only four school days & the Beach Express is set to be expanded.

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Social justice groups set their agenda for 2025 Alabama legislative session

by Ralph Chapoco, Alabama Reflector
February 5, 2025

Social justice advocates plan to prioritize voting rights and reforms to the state’s criminal legal system in the 2025 legislative session.

The ACLU of Alabama released its list of legislative priorities at the end of January, which included protecting free speech and reproductive health, as well as protecting voting rights and the First Amendment.

Along with the list of priorities, the advocacy group has also identified a list of bills it will support and oppose.

“In the bills that we specifically identified, it was really important to us that we focus on freedom and choice, and expansion of both of those things,” said A’Niya Robinson, policy and organizing director for ACLU of Alabama.

The regular session of the Legislature began on Tuesday. Alabama legislative leaders said they planned to emphasize bills targeting crime and immigration.

Other social justice advocates are looking to steer legislators toward reform instead of the status quo, particularly on voting rights and access.

Voting rights has been at the forefront of priority issues since President Donald Trump falsely alleged that the 2020 election had been manipulated that engineered his loss to the eventual winner, President Joe Biden.

In the years following the election, the Alabama Legislature passed bills banning drop boxes for ballots; barring local governments from accepting private money to administer elections and criminalizing certain forms of absentee ballot assistance.

Following a lawsuit from civil rights groups, a federal judge blocked a portion of the law that limited a third party’s ability to provide ballot assistance, ruling that it violated portions of the Voting Rights Act.

“There is a lot happening within this state that feels very alarming,” Robinson said. “For example, if we take voting rights, there have been numerous bills from sessions past, with each bill there seems to be more and more encroachment, and more and more suppression of people’s right to just cast a ballot.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center also plans to advocate for voting rights bills during the session.

“Alabama voters face a range of obstacles that make voting in-person on Election Day a significant challenge — from onerous voter ID requirements and polling precinct changes to the closure of nearly half of the DMV offices in majority-Black counties that issue the required documentation,” the SPLC stated in its list of priorities.

Democratic legislators have filed bills addressing the issue.

Rep. Thomas Jackson, D-Thomasville filed legislation in the offseason to allow early voting in the state.

HB 97, filed by Rep. Kenyatte Hassell, D-Montgomery, would allow people the opportunity to fix any issues that election managers find with their absentee ballot affidavit.

Sen. Kirk Hatcher, D-Montgomery and Rep. Adline Clarke, D-Mobile,  jointly filed a comprehensive voting rights bill in their respective chambers.

The Senate version, SB 7, automatically restores voting rights for some of those who lost their right to vote in the state. The bill also eliminates the need to provide an excuse to vote by absentee, permit same day voter registration and require the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office to have a statewide voter database. It would also create a Voting Rights Commission in the state that has the power to block measures from local governments that could limit voter access to the ballot box.

Clarke not only filed the companion bill, but also a host of others aimed at expanding people’s right to vote in the state.

The bill, HB 77, would “allow disabled individuals to designate someone to assist them with the absentee voting process, including mailing or hand-delivering their applications and ballots,” she said in a statement she emailed in January.

The ACLU of Alabama will also support bills to reform the criminal legal system.

“When you think about criminal legal reform, you also have to think about the conditions that incarcerated people are living under,” Robinson said. “You think about all the deaths that are occurring and all the violence.”

Civil rights groups also want to see changes to the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles.  Alabama Arise, for the first time, included reforming the parole system to its legislative priorities.

Thus far, Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, had been one of the few legislators who spearheaded efforts to reform the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles, frustrated at the low rate that members have granted parole.

As recently as 2017, the parole rate has declined to single digits, and although the grant rate has increased to slightly more than 20% in recent months according to data from the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles, England believes that reforms are still needed.

HB 40 would create a Criminal Justice Policy Development Council that would establish and implement a validated risk assessment for people who are incarcerated. This assessment would be used for parole guidelines and to create a classification system for people in prison that gauges their risk for criminal behavior.

It would require the parole board to make public its guidelines that it uses when deciding parole, and it mandates that they state a reason if they make a decision that deviates from the parole guidelines.

The bill also allows parole applicants to appeal decisions by the parole board should they be denied parole.

A message was left with England Tuesday seeking comment.

Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.

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Gretchen Whitmer can save Demetrius Frazier from Alabama’s death chamber

by Jamila Hodge, Alabama Reflector
February 4, 2025

Unless Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer acts before his Wednesday, Feb. 6, execution date, Demetrius Frazier will be the first Michigan prisoner to be executed in the 188 years since Michigan became a state.

In 1992, Frazier was arrested and convicted in Wayne County, Michigan, at the age of 19, after being subjected to troubling and abusive childhood circumstances. He was sentenced to three life sentences without parole for criminal sexual conduct and murder in connection with sexual conduct.

While under arrest in Michigan, Frazier confessed to committing a similar crime in Alabama, and in 1995, Alabama “borrowed” Frazier, convicted him of murder, and sentenced him to death. Because of his prior Michigan sentences, he was then returned to Michigan’s custody.

But in 2011, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley agreed to transfer Frazier to Alabama’s death row. Frazier’s lawyers were not given notice of this agreement and had no opportunity to object.

Alabama now seeks to make Frazier the 785th person it has executed since it became a state in 1819 and the 79th in the death penalty’s “modern era.” He would be the fourth man suffocated by nitrogen gas, using a still-experimental and arguably torturous method of execution.

Alabama’s death penalty is infamous for its racial bias. According to a 2011 study, people convicted of killing a white person are more than four times more likely to get a death sentence than people convicted of killing someone who is not white. And just last year, an Alabama court refused to even con­sid­er the evi­dence of ille­gal racial bias in jury selec­tion in a separate case.

Last week, Frazier filed a lawsuit in federal court in Alabama, challenging his illegal transfer from Michigan to Alabama. Disappointingly, Michigan’s Attorney General Dana Nessel announced that her “department does not intervene in other states’ criminal matters” and declined to request Frazier’s return to Michigan.

Nessel’s position betrays Michigan’s long history of resistance to immoral and unjust laws and practices. In the 1800s, Adam Crosswhite and his family — who escaped enslavement in Kentucky for the freedom of Marshall, Michigan — could have been kidnapped and returned to bondage. Instead, they were saved by the entire town, “including the sheriff and prominent Black and white citizens.” The heroism of the people of Marshall helped spur the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Those Michigan leaders had no problem intervening in “other states’ criminal matters.”

The state of Michigan has never executed a person in its custody. In 1847, it became the first English-speaking jurisdiction to abolish the death penalty. Michiganders felt so strongly about continuing this policy and practice that in 1963, Michigan became the first United States jurisdiction to include a prohibition on capital punishment in its constitution.

A bipartisan array of governors has upheld this policy. Even Snyder, the co-signatory to the improper agreement to transfer Frazier to Alabama, apparently had a change of heart when it came time to deliver a different person under death sentence to another state to face execution. Just four years after sending Frazier to Alabama, Snyder’s enforcement of Michigan’s policy led to his refusal to turn over Clarence Ray, a Michigan man serving life without parole for murder, to California and its execution chamber. Michigan officials said at the time they would not extradite people to states with the death penalty.

The only obvious differences between Frazier and Ray are their races (Frazier is Black; Ray is white) and the states in which they committed their second (and capital) murders.

On Tuesday, Frazier’s elderly mother attempted to meet with Whitmer and deliver a letter, asking her to demand Demetrius’ return to Michigan. Neither the governor nor any staff member agreed to meet with Mrs. Frazier.

But there is precedent for Whitmer to act courageously. The governors of California, Oregon, and Pennsylvania have each declared moratoria on executions under their leadership. Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted all death sentences in his state, leading to the abolition of the death penalty in Illinois. And most recently, President Joe Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 men on federal death row.

As a leader of a racial justice organization proudly born and raised in Detroit, I know that taking a stand requires courage. And I draw strength and inspiration from the deep roots of resistance in places like Marshall, Michigan.

Demanding Demetrius Frazier’s return to Michigan is simply the right thing to do.

Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.

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