Why Alabama Felons Must Carry Special ID Or Go To Jail
In 2018, a sheriff’s deputy pulled over Emmanuel Pullom because suspecting that the car he was driving was stolen. Pullom was arrested and taken to the county jail in Birmingham, Alabama.
Pullom, however, wasn’t charged with stealing the vehicle, which he owned. Instead, he was charged with failing to possess an official ID that identified him as a felon, according to AL.com.
“The cop said, ‘Where’s your felon card?’” Pullom recalled in an interview with AL.com. “I said, ’What kind of card?’ He said, ’If you’ve got three felonies, you’ve got to get a felon card.’”
A little-known state law requires those with more than two felony convictions to register with their local sheriff’s office and carry a specific ID identifying them as repeat felons. Violations can lead to fines or even jail time.
More than 300 people in Alabama have been charged with violating this law since 2014.
Legal experts reportedly say the law is likely unconstitutional and reminiscent of slavery-era restrictions that required Black people to present their “freedom papers” to white people on demand. Then again in 1935 when Birmingham passed a city ordinance forcing former felons to register with local police as soon as they arrived in the city. In 1966, Alabama instituted the Alabama Felon Registration Act, which remains in place until today.
“The card is reminiscent of the cards Jews were forced to carry in the ghettos,” said John H. Blume, a criminal law professor at Cornell Law School to the AL.com.
“It will also give police the ability to stop people they know are felons to see if they have their cards and … to avoid things like reasonable suspicion and probable cause.”
But Mobile County Sheriff Sam Cochran, the top law enforcement official in Alabama’s second-largest county, supports the law, according to AL.com. He said the charge “gives you a good stepping stone” for putting someone suspected of other crimes in jail, when there otherwise isn’t enough evidence to make an arrest.
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office has not issued any further comment about Gayle’s arrest.
