From July 31 through August 14, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals issued a steady stream of criminal-case entries. But the docket did not yield a published merits opinion creating a new rule for practitioners to cite.
Instead, the Court’s releases fell into two categories:
rehearing denials in appeals previously decided; and
affirmances by memorandum in new appeals.
That can look like a quiet period in criminal law. It is not. It is a useful reminder that appellate monitoring has two jobs: identify new precedent when the Court announces it, and identify case-status signals when the Court does not.
The distinction matters for lawyers handling individual appeals, lawyers monitoring recurring issues, and firms deciding what belongs in a public case-law update.
The three-week pattern
July 31: six rehearing denials
On July 31, the Court overruled rehearing applications in Etherton v. City of Rainsville, Martin v. Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles, P.A. v. State, Culver v. State, Floyd v. State, and George v. State.
August 7: five rehearing denials
The August 7 docket likewise consisted of rehearing denials in Johnson v. State, Miles v. State, Boone v. State, Perez v. State, and Mitchell v. State.
August 14: new memorandum affirmances, plus rehearing activity
The August 14 docket included memorandum affirmances in Hawkins v. Alabama Department of Corrections and Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles, Burlison v. City of Boaz, Tinsley v. Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles, and Funderburg v. Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles. The Court also overruled rehearing in Harris v. City of Gulf Shores, State v. Scott, Brunson v. State, and Parker v. State.
The publicly available entries do not disclose the underlying offenses, facts, or legal reasoning in the memorandum cases. Accordingly, this post does not infer substantive holdings from captions or docket labels.
What a memorandum affirmance means—and does not mean
Under Alabama Rule of Appellate Procedure 54, the Court of Criminal Appeals may affirm without a published opinion when an opinion would serve no significant precedential purpose. The Court still prepares a memorandum addressing the appellant’s contentions and the reasons for rejecting them, but the memorandum is not published in the official reports. A no-opinion affirmance or memorandum has no precedential value and generally may not be cited in briefs or arguments, subject to narrow exceptions for such matters as law of the case, res judicata, collateral estoppel, double jeopardy, or procedural bar. Ala. R. App. P. 54.
For the broader criminal-defense bar, that means a memorandum affirmance is not a new authority to add to a motion, brief, or CLE outline. It does not show that the Court has announced a new rule on suppression, sentencing, jury selection, confrontation, or postconviction procedure.
For counsel in the case, however, the memorandum is essential. It explains the result that must be evaluated on rehearing, in a possible certiorari petition, or in deciding what the judgment means for the client.
A better way to read a weekly appellate docket
A weekly docket should not be sorted into only two categories: “important” and “unimportant.” The more useful question is what the entry requires the lawyer to do.
Docket event
What it means for the broader bar
What it means for counsel in the case
Published merits opinion
Potential new precedent; read, analyze, and assess whether it changes practice.
Evaluate the holding, remedy, rehearing options, and any next appellate step.
Memorandum affirmance
No new citable doctrine; monitor for issue trends but do not treat it as authority.
Obtain and analyze the memorandum, preserve issues, and advise the client on next steps.
Rehearing denied
Usually no new doctrine or rationale.
Evaluate discretionary review, finality, and case-specific consequences immediately.
Certificate of judgment
A finality signal, not a merits ruling.
Confirm the effect of finality in the case and assess any remaining remedies or deadlines.
This three-week run is an example of why a law firm should monitor more than published opinions. A docket full of memorandum affirmances and rehearing denials may not justify multiple public “case roundup” posts. But it does require disciplined internal monitoring, because clients do not experience a rehearing denial or certificate of judgment as a quiet week.
The defense-side lesson: memorandum cases still require a record strategy
The Court’s choice not to issue a published opinion does not mean the appeal lacked an issue worth preserving. It means the disposition does not serve as precedent for everyone else.
Counsel handling a memorandum affirmance should immediately obtain and review the memorandum, original briefs, record citations, rehearing materials, and the exact order issued by the Court. The questions are case-specific:
What issue did the memorandum reject?
Did the rehearing application identify the overlooked law or fact with sufficient particularity?
If the memorandum omitted facts or stated them inadequately, did counsel include the statement of facts required for later review?
Is there a genuine ground for Alabama Supreme Court certiorari, rather than simply a disagreement with the result?
What is the client’s actual objective if further review is pursued?
In an ordinary criminal case, rehearing in the Court of Criminal Appeals is generally a prerequisite to certiorari review. Rule 40 also makes the rehearing application the place to present a fact statement when the court’s memorandum has none, or to propose additional or corrected facts when necessary. Ala. R. App. P. 40.
That is not a technicality. Under Rule 39, a certiorari petition may need to reproduce, verbatim and with record references, a fact statement that was presented on rehearing but not adopted by the Court of Criminal Appeals. Ala. R. App. P. 39.
Why these weeks produced no new appellate rule to analyze
For criminal practitioners, the key fact is not that the Court issued several entries. It is that none of those entries contains a new, published legal holding.
A rehearing-denied notice tells the reader only that the Court declined to change its earlier decision. A memorandum affirmance resolves the individual appeal, but Rule 54 prevents counsel from treating the memorandum as citable authority in the next case. Neither type of entry supports a reliable claim that the Court has changed Alabama law on suppression, sentencing, evidence, postconviction procedure, municipal appeals, parole, or any other recurring issue.
That is why these dockets do not yield a conventional case-law analysis. There is no written, precedential reasoning to parse, compare with earlier cases, or apply to a different client’s facts. The responsible conclusion is limited: these cases reached procedural or appellate endpoints, but the public docket does not disclose a new rule for the criminal-law bar.
What lawyers should take from the absence of a published holding
The absence of a new opinion does not mean the Court’s work was insignificant. It means the lessons are narrower and case-specific.
For lawyers with cases on these dockets: obtain the memorandum, review the rehearing record, calendar finality, and assess whether a genuine basis exists for further review.
For lawyers following Alabama criminal law generally: do not treat the captions, court names, or outcomes as evidence that the Court endorsed a proposition of law that can be used in another case.
For lawyers watching recurring practice areas: note the categories of cases that appear—such as municipal matters, parole or corrections litigation, postconviction matters, and direct criminal appeals—but wait for a published opinion or an accessible underlying memorandum before drawing a doctrinal conclusion.
This distinction protects against a common appellate-monitoring error: treating a large docket as a large body of law. A docket may be busy while the precedential law remains unchanged.
Bottom line
The July 31, August 7, and August 14 dockets did not create a new body of published Alabama criminal law. But they demonstrate a core appellate reality: published precedent is only one part of the work.
For the broader bar, the absence of a published opinion means there is no new authority to cite. For counsel in the affected appeals, a memorandum affirmance or rehearing denial may be the most important development of the case.
The right practice is to track both: read published opinions for doctrine, and read individual docket events for deadlines, preservation, finality, and client advice.
This article is for general informational purposes only and is not legal advice. It summarizes publicly available Court of Criminal Appeals entries issued July 31, August 7, and August 14, 2026. It does not purport to describe the undisclosed reasoning or merits of the underlying memorandum decisions.