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A Montgomery legal nonprofit will receive a second year of grant funding from the NFL for their work addressing criminal justice reform in Alabama.
Alabama Appleseed is one of nine organizations to receive a portion of $2.5 million in grant funds through the NFL s Inspire Change initiative. A committee of players and team owners voted to renew Appleseed s grant, according to an NFL release.
“This grant builds on an energy for change in Alabama and will allow Alabama Appleseed to do what we do best provide evidence-based research, tell stories from impacted communities, and build coalitions for legislative reforms so desperately needed to create justice and equity, said Carla Crowder, executive director for Alabama Appleseed.
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alabamaappleseed.org
Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice this week released a comprehensive new report examining Alabamaâs Habitual Felony Offender Act, Condemned:  Hundreds of Men Are Sentenced to Die in Prison for Crimes with No Physical Injury. They Haven’t Given Up on Life. Why Has Alabama Given Up on Them?
The report is a call to action as Alabama lawmakers consider desperately needed sentencing reforms to address unconstitutional conditions in Alabamaâs menâs prisons. Condemned shares the stories of men in their 50s, 60s and 70s who are sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. They fill prison honor dorms, serving as mentors, role models, and chapel workers despite being condemned to die in prison for non-homicide offenses committed decades ago.
By Victor Omondi
Thirty six years ago, a man from Alabama received a life sentence without parole for robbing $50 from a bakery. Alvin Kennard was charged and convicted of first-degree robbery at the age of 22 years in 1983.
Now three decades later, he is 58 years old and is finally set to be freed after an order was issued for his release from Donaldson correctional facility in Bessemer.
According to reports, three decades ago, the Alabama state law mandated that every fourth offender be sentenced to life in prison. That law, the Habitual Felony Offender Act, was changed to grant judges the option of giving fourth-time offenders a possibility of parole. However, even when the change took place, the law wasn’t made retroactive. This meant that Kennard’s case couldn’t receive an automatic resentencing. Instead, it happened by chance.