By Phillip Rawls 
The Associated Press

Three years of work to restructure Alabama's sentencing laws stalled Wednesday when a House committee voted down a key bill from the Alabama Sentencing Commission.

The House Judiciary Committee voted 6-5 against a bill that would raise the dollar amounts that define levels of property crimes in the state. The Alabama Retail Association opposed raising the limits because of concerns it could soften the punishment for shoplifters and reduce the law's effect as a deterrent.

"You can't fight the Retail Association," said Lynda Flynt, executive director of the Sentencing Commission.

Rep. Marcel Black, chairman of the Judiciary Committee and sponsor of the Sentencing Commission's legislation, postponed action on the other two bills in the commission's package after the first one failed. Black said the commission would regroup and try again later in the legislative session.

Republican Attorney General Bill Pryor got the Legislature to create the Sentencing Commission in 2000 to recommend ways to remove the widespread disparity in sentencing and put some truth into the length of a sentence.

The commission -- consisting of lawyers, judges, prosecutors, corrections officials and other state and county officials -- recommended the Legislature begin the process by considering three bills to:

Require the commission to develop voluntary sentencing guidelines for judges to use in hopes of getting more uniform sentences for similar crimes. Expand community corrections programs by authorizing county commissions to establish such programs and setting up a division with the state Department of Corrections to work with them. The bill's goal is to have more nonviolent offenders working and paying restitution and fewer going to prison. Raise the monetary levels for some property crimes, most of which haven't been changed in three decades. The bill's provisions included increasing the threshold between misdemeanor theft and felony theft from $250 to $500.

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