If you want to kill somebody in Alabama, try not to do it when there's an election coming up:
Statistics show that Alabama judges, who are elected to the bench, have overridden juries in murder cases 111 times since the death penalty’s reinstatement in 1976. Of that 111, judges have upgraded the sentences to death 101 times. In the remaining 10 cases, the judges downgraded the sentence to life in prison. More than 20 percent of the inmates on death row in Alabama are there as a result of judicial overrides. [...]The Alabama Criminal Defense Lawyers Association says in the 111 death-penalty upgrade decisions, 80 percent occurred in the year leading up to a judge's re-election. [Allgov]
Alabama's combination of elected judges, the death penalty, and judicial override essentially allows judges to campaign from the bench, convincing voters they're tough on crime by handing down the death penalty in cases where jurors didn't find it appropriate. This lethal legal mix is unique to Alabama among all 50 states.
For more background on the (relatively rare) American practice of electing judges, take a look at this segment from John Oliver on Last Week Tonight.
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