Tracie Todd
Tracie A. Todd is a former deputy Jefferson County District Attorney who currently sits on the criminal division of the 10th Judicial Circuit of Alabama.
Todd, who has served as a special judge for the Birmingham Municipal Court, defeated Republican Bill Cole in the 2012 general election and ran unopposed in the 2018 election.
In March 2016 Todd ruled that Alabama's capital sentencing scheme violated the United States Constitution, basing her decision on the similarity of Alabama's scheme and Florida's, which was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in Hurst v. Florida. Her jurisdiction limited the application of the decision to the case before her, unless other judges were to affirm the decision independently. Attorney General of Alabama Luther Strange appealed the decision to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, which overruled Todd and ordered her to recuse herself from capital murder cases based on the incompatibility of her prior decisions with the interpretation of the Supreme Court of Alabama. The Attorney General had also sought a finding of contempt against Todd, but that motion was denied and the question referred to the state's Judicial Inquiry Commission.
References
- Faulk, Kent (March 3, 2016) "JeffCo judge: Alabama death penalty sentence scheme unconstitutional." The Birmingham News
- Hrynkiw, Ivana (October 18, 2018) "Appeals court orders review of Jefferson County judge." The Birmingham News
External links
- Tracie A. Todd at ballotpedia.org