Habitual Felony Offender Act: Alabama law produces long prison sentences for questionable prior convictions

Will Tucker, Investigative Reporter | Read the full piece here: [link removed]


The court was in a hurry to resolve Flavius Henderson's case.

Henderson had been arrested and charged with cocaine trafficking in
Jefferson County, Alabama, in 2000. In May 2001, at the age of 47, he
took his attorney's advice and waived his right to a jury trial
in the case. Things proceeded in a whirlwind. There was a short trial
before the judge - no jury and no witnesses.

Henderson was convicted.

At the sentencing, his attorney objected to the use of Alabama's
Habitual Felony Offender Act (HFOA) to sentence his client to life
without parole. The defense, which didn't get into the details
of Henderson's prior convictions, failed. Henderson went to
prison for what was expected to be the rest of his life.

"Perhaps resigned, Henderson made no statement at
sentencing," a court document reads.

But there was a problem big enough to convince a judge years later to
rescind the life-without-parole sentence - freeing him after 20
years in prison. Only two of Henderson's three prior felony
convictions appeared to qualify for use under the HFOA. His third
prior felony conviction - a grand larceny conviction from 1979
involving the theft of $90 worth of car batteries - was invalid
because of prosecutorial errors at the time.

When Henderson found himself on trial in the early 2000s, his defense
attorney didn't dispute these three apparent felony convictions.
The decision not to challenge prosecutors on their use of these
convictions occurred during a routine process known as stipulating
facts, where both sides can accept facts outright about prior
convictions, according to Alabama lawyers and legal experts. But it
also means prosecutors, courts and defense attorneys might miss
problems with prior convictions used to name someone a habitual
offender and potentially put that person on the path to a life
sentence.

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