MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Members of the Alabama House voted down a bill Wednesday that would have seen Class B and C misdemeanor warrants expire after ten years, killing the bill’s prospects on the last day of the 2025 legislative session.
The bill was sponsored by Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, and was filed after a constituent of his – a mother in Morgan County – was arrested at her home in front of her young daughter on an 11-year old misdemeanor warrant.
“This bill will hopefully prevent someone from being embarrassed and being jailed by an arrest for a low level charge that happened many years prior …” Orr previously told Alabama Daily News.
Carrying the bill in the lower chamber, House Majority Leader Scott Stadthagen, R-Hartselle, spoke to the experience of the Morgan County mother, Clarissa Curbow, of being arrested at her home 11 years after having ‘turned her life around.’
“We had a lady in Morgan County who, in her younger years, was not living the life she should; she was involved in drugs, hanging out with the wrong crowds, did a couple months in jail,” Stadthagen said. “From that, she saw the writing on the wall that she needed to turn her life around, and she did.”
However, the bill was met with immediate opposition from both Republicans and Democrats.
Rep. Mary Moore, D-Birmingham, pushed back on the idea of filing legislation based on a single incident, whereas Rep. Bryan Brinyark, R-Arab, expressed concerns over the increased workload the proposal would place on local courts, which under the bill would be required to conduct regular audits of warrants.
“This bill is going to have a horrible, horrible effect on all of these small cities and towns,” Brinyark said, speaking on the House floor.
He also argued that the bill would also incentivize Alabamians with outstanding misdemeanor warrants to be disincentivized from turning themselves in, and instead, incentivized to wait for the ten years to expire.
To better avoid situations like Curbow’s, Brinyark said that connecting Alabama’s local courts to a unified, digital system would be a better approach, one that wouldn’t demand more work from court clerks and allow for warrants to be served quicker.