63 new Alabama laws went into effect July 1st
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) - Friday, 63 new laws went into effect in Alabama, among the new laws is the Sergeant Nick Risner Act and a law requiring public schools to provide designated changing rooms for students based on the sex on their birth certificates.
The Nick Risner Act prevents prisoners who used a deadly weapon to kill someone from being released early under Alabama’s Good Time Law. Good Time allows inmates to earn time off their sentence for good behavior.
The Nick Risner act is in honor of Sheffield’s Sgt. Nick Risner who died in the line of duty during a shootout in 2021.
READ MORE:
Police say that the suspect in the 2021 shootout, Brian Martin, should have still been in prison at the time is Risner’s death. Due to Good Time Laws, Martin served just over three years of his ten-year sentence for killing his father.
Attorney, Mark McDaniel says he has seen several inmates get out on Good Time to commit another crime.
”It is not an environment that you go in and come out a whole lot better person. In my 45 years, you have a high recidivism rate because when you are incarcerated, you are warehoused,” McDaniel said. “You are not likely to come out a better person than when you went in.”
Another law that went into effect is requiring public schools to provide designated changing rooms for students based on the sex on their birth certificates.
Starting this school year, every gender nonconforming student will have to use the restroom or locker room designated to their biological sex.
The Alabama House of Representatives voted 74-24 on the highly controversial law after two hours of debate. Republicans say this will address an ongoing problem in public schools while democrats say it targets transgender youth.
McDaniel says if individual school districts make a separate bathroom for trans students, it could create numerous discrimination lawsuits. McDaniel also believes a case regarding this law will end up in the Supreme Court.
”This is not unusual. Anytime you have social changes and new technology, in my experience, the law tries to catch up,” McDaniel said. “When these acts come into play, they will be contested in court, and some of them will end up in the United States Supreme Court.”
Copyright 2022 WAFF. All rights reserved.