A state representative from Daphne is reviving a fight to expand Alabama’s death penalty to cover some of the state’s most severe child sex crimes, just days after discussing the idea at the White House.
State Rep. Matt Simpson, a Republican who represents Daphne, told reporters at a Montgomery news conference Thursday that he plans to reintroduce legislation that stalled earlier this year. The bill would allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty against defendants convicted of raping or sodomizing children younger than 12.
“In my opinion, this is the worst of the worst of offenses,” Simpson said. “Taking advantage and taking the innocence of children under the age of 12 is one of the worst things — if not the worst — someone can do. Because it is one of the worst offenses, it deserves the worst of the worst punishments.”
Simpson will carry two death penalty bills into the 2026 legislative session. He has already prefiled separate legislation that would allow capital punishment for murders committed in places where multiple people are put at risk.
The child rape proposal faces a significant legal hurdle. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a similar Louisiana law in 2008, ruling that executing someone for a crime that did not result in death was unconstitutionally “unusual” punishment. Simpson is betting that a wave of similar state laws could eventually change the calculus at the nation’s highest court. He pointed to laws already passed in Florida in 2023 and in Tennessee last year, along with newer statutes in Idaho, Arkansas and Oklahoma this year.
“Alabama needs to be on this list,” Simpson said, arguing that if enough states adopt similar laws, the Supreme Court may eventually decide the punishment is no longer “unusual” and therefore constitutional.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said his office is prepared to defend the law in court if it passes.
“I can tell you that if it occurs during my tenure as attorney general, we will make sure that we are defending this law, as we’ve done many others that the Legislature has passed,” Marshall said at the news conference. “To be able to send a clear message about not only the intent of the Legislature in protecting kids, but the public policy in our state as to how we hold those who hurt our kids accountable.”
U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a Republican from Auburn, also voiced support for the measure, telling reporters on a conference call that he is “all on board with that.”
“It’s just amazing to me how we can allow something like that to happen,” Tuberville said.
Not everyone is convinced expanding the death penalty is the right approach. Research points to a broader national retreat from capital punishment, even in the most severe cases. A paper published this year by University of Alabama School of Law professor Adam Lankford and Ph.D. candidate Tova Cohen found that use of the death penalty in mass shooting cases has fallen sharply since the 1960s.
“General public views towards a death penalty have sort of soured, likely because of the treatment or maltreatment of people who are on death row,” said Cohen, who earned her master’s degree from the University of Alabama.
Cohen said the decline in death penalty use spans both Democratic- and Republican-leaning states. Since 2010, she said, defendants in red states did not receive the death penalty in roughly two-thirds of mass shooting cases where they were eligible for it.
“We’re talking mass shootings,” she said. “They did not receive them. And so, we are seeing a geopolitical trend that is trending downwards, probably, you know, since 1966 — but more prominently since 2010.”
Cohen said research on deterrence shows that the severity of a punishment matters less than how swiftly and certainly it is applied — and defendants often spend decades on death row, if they receive a death sentence at all.
“Severity doesn’t really matter as much,” she said, questioning whether a death penalty for child rape convictions would be used often enough to serve as a meaningful deterrent. “What is more heinous than plotting and planning a mass shooting event? But if 60 percent of those individuals are not receiving the death penalty, then I don’t see how we can move that into a space of non-life-threatening, but still extremely gross and violent crimes.”
Despite those doubts from researchers, Simpson said the proposal has found receptive ears within the Trump administration.
“I was very honored to be in the White House on Tuesday, and this bill, this topic was discussed in the White House,” Simpson said. “They talked about this being part of the ‘America First’ agenda.”
Simpson’s bills will be among the measures lawmakers take up when the 2026 Alabama legislative session convenes.