The State of Alabama is set to execute Jeffery Lee this coming week. Lee was convicted of murder by a jury who then voted to sentence him to life in prison; then, under a now-repealed law permitting judicial override, the judge substituted the jury’s sentence of life in prison with a death sentence. Many, many voices are calling Governor Ivey to commute his sentence to life in prison, not to pardon him or grant clemency, not to release him, but to institute the jury’s own sentence.
Here is my email to the Governor this morning (solely and exclusively in my personal capacity) urging her to commute his sentence for the sake of the rule of law, public safety, and justice:
Dear Governor Ivey:
Please commute Jeffery Lee’s sentence from death to life in prison. I write as a Christian, lawyer, and Alabamian deeply concerned about public safety, constitutional democracy, and the rights and dignities of all Americans. (In full disclosure, I am a law professor at the University of Alabama, but I write today in my personal capacity exclusively, speaking only for myself, and not in my role as a state employee, UA faculty, and not on behalf of my clients, colleagues, or students.)
You are receiving countless pleas and messages in this case, and you certainly understand the legal questions and complications. I add my voice on four specific points:
1. While judicial overrides may have been the law of the land, the policy permitting judicial overrides was never just. It was a bad law from the beginning. Alabamians repealed it because it was a horrible, deeply flawed public policy. Judicial overrides were anti-democratic and prone to catastrophic mistakes. The People of Alabama acknowledged and corrected this bad law in 2017. While it may have been legal, it was never moral or wise, and we got rid of it. To execute Jeffery Lee now under a flawed law that we have repealed is to perpetuate injustice in service of a historic mistake. We should not be so stubborn to refuse to repent of the consequences of a bad law we already rejected.
2. Jeffery Lee’s jury convicted him and sentenced him to life. I am asking you to do nothing else than to honor their verdict. They were the Alabamians selected by the court and the parties to hear the case and render judgment, Lee’s jury of his peers. The jury trial is a fundamental pillar of American constitutional governance. It is essential to the separation of powers and basic democracy, deferring to the community, the People, to join together to make the hardest decisions to deprive another citizen of life, liberty, and property. The jury did their job on our behalf. You and we should honor it.
3. Commuting Lee’s sentence is no threat to public safety. Commuting his sentence does not undermine the rule of law. It sets no dangerous precedent. It does not incentivize more crime. It would not embolden violent criminals. Executing him after this long and in this manner does not deter crime or bad actors. Executing him now is nothing more than an act of rage, accomplishing nothing more than public revenge. Executing him does not serve his victims or their families. Executing him does not keep any of us safer. The law does not demand his life; the law permits us to imprison him for life. His permanent incarceration is a sufficient deterrent to accomplish all the needed goals of our laws and public policy. Executing him avails nothing.
4. To commute his sentence to life in prison promotes the rule of law. Some may argue that the law demands the execution of Jeffery Lee because that was the sentence he received from his judge, but they are wrong. Some may cite Romans 13 and its declaration that the magistrate wields the sword to punish the wicked, but they need to keep reading. The law may permit his execution; that is true. But the law also permits you as Governor to commute his sentence. Commutation is not an exception to the law; it is the law within your constitutional power. As the law once permitted the judge to ignore the jury, so the law now permits you to override the judge for the sake of justice. Romans 13 continues its discourse on the law, speaking to those same magistrates: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves one another has fulfilled the law. . . Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. “ In his letter, James writes, “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you do well. . . . So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.” Executing Jeffery Lee is wrong; showing him his mercy is right, an act of love and justice consistent with the law of the land and the law of God.
May God bless your deliberations. If you follow the way of love and mercy in the Christian faith that we share, even as you measure the rule of law and the public good, you will commute Jeffery Lee’s sentence, and we will all be safer and have more peace.
Thank you,
Jeff Baker
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Very well and clearly-spoken, sir! Thank you!🙏🏻
Thank you for this, Jeff. This is such a powerful witness to grace and justice.