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Still, it's the death penalty that likely represents the greatest challenge for Washington. Judges hold the final authority to sentence defendants to death in Alabama, but district attorneys have a lot of discretion on whether to recommend capital punishment in murder cases. Anthony Hinton, who served 30 years on death row for a crime he didn't commit, was freed last year after prosecutors struggled to link his mother's gun to bullets used in the murder.Washington says she will only recommend death for the "worst of the worst" offenders, pointing to a case where defendants burned their victim alive and showed no remorse as an example. "A lot of the people who are placed on death row are exonerated," Washington said, adding that with her in office, "death is not going to be the automatic charge" in murder cases.(Veitch, her opponent and the incumbent DA, did not respond to a request for comment sent to his campaign.)In addition to making state history, Washington will also be the first ever black DA in Jefferson County. It's a major milestone 53 years after Birmingham faced one of the worst acts of terrorism of the civil rights era, the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing, in which KKK members killed four young black girls. And Washington isn't the only candidate breaking barriers in the county—voters also elected nine black women to local judgeships, a record.But Washington is too focused on the task ahead to dwell for long on her place in history. The phones in her small law office have been ringing off the hook since the election, Washington said, which just serves to drive home the stakes."Don't sit and talk about what a problem is," she told me, "if you're not going to be one of the proactive people who actually does something to change it."Follow Casey Tolan on Twitter.