Julius Jones’ sentence commuted
December 6, 2021
Right up to and including the commutation of his death sentence, the state of Oklahoma acted with deliberate malice and cruelty to Julius Jones. Yes,
Right up to and including the commutation of his death sentence, the state of Oklahoma acted with deliberate malice and cruelty to Julius Jones. Yes,
When the California Committee on Revision of the Penal Code released a draft report in May, recommending that California abolish its death penalty, it highlighted
A year ago, wrongful convictions and the death penalty were not something that crossed my mind very often. As a Japanese major, I generally stay
“I want to share with you my absolute conviction that the death penalty must disappear from the entire world as it is a shame for
In Japan, death row prisoners wake up every day wondering if it will be their last. Execution dates are not set in Japan so the prisoners don’t know when they will be executed until right before they are hanged (the only method Japan uses).
In its analysis of the President Biden-appointed US Supreme Court Reform Commission’s draft recommendations, Balls and Strikes says the “commission gave the death penalty a
You are going to want to meet Mamie Lang Kirkland.
The state of Alabama executed Willie B. Smith last month without bothering to dispute the fact that he was intellectually disabled.
Updates from Mississippi, Tennessee, Florida, and Utah.
“Why Is Toforest Johnson Still on Alabama’s Death Row?” former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court Drayton Nabers, Jr., asks in his op-ed in the Montgomery-Advertiser. Johnson was sentenced to death in 1998 for the killing of Birmingham deputy sheriff William G. Hardy. But despite substantial new evidence that Johnson is innocent, and that the district attorney and the lead prosecutor in Forest’s case support a new trial, state
Two of three planned executions for this month were stayed, while Texas held its first of five planned for this year. Texas executed Carl Buntion last Thursday. He was 78, the oldest person on the state’s death row, and the oldest person ever executed by the state. Buntion was sentenced to death in 1991 for the killing of Houston police officer James Irby during a traffic stop, KPRC2 reports. He
The Rev. Caroll Pickett, who, as prison chaplain on Texas’s death row, witnessed 95 executions, died earlier this month. He was 88. He told the New York Times in 2017, “People don’t realize that you never get over it, unless you’re just cold and calculated. I’ll never forget it. Not a day goes by. Not a day goes by. And I don’t expect it to. If it does, then I
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee issued a temporary reprieve for Oscar Smith on Thursday, WKRN.com reports. “Due to an oversight in preparation for lethal injection, the scheduled execution of Oscar Smith will not move forward tonight. I am granting a temporary reprieve while we address Tennessee Department of Correction protocol,” Lee said. The statement was released just hours before Smith was scheduled to be killed and after he ate his last
In Missouri, Carman Deck is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday for the 1996 killings of James and Zelma Long. Deck’s 1998 death sentence had been overturned three times, before a three-judge panel for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals restored his death sentence, KHQA reports. Supporters of Deck, including the Missouri ACLU, Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, and two state legislators, one Democrat and one Republican, have
In less than three weeks, Melissa Lucio is scheduled to be executed by Texas for the killing of her two-year-old daughter, despite overwhelming evidence her daughter died after a fall down the stairs. Last week, seven Texas legislators visited Lucio on death row to pray with her and assure her they were doing what they could to stop her execution, AP reports. State Rep. Joe Moody told AP that while
Jury selection for the penalty phase of the trial for Nikolas Cruz began this week. Cruz pleaded guilty in October to killing 17 people and wounding 17 others inside Marjory Stonemason Douglas High School in February 2018. The jury will decide whether to sentence Cruz, who was 19 at the time of the shooting, to life in prison without the possibility of parole or to death. A death verdict will
Our Annual Awards Event last Thursday was a powerful reminder of how far we’ve come since we held our first event 30 years ago. And the accounts from those who were instrumental in getting Virginia’s and France’s death penalties abolished gave us renewed energy to continue our efforts to see it repealed not just here in California, but in all the remaining death penalty states in the country and around
On “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” Oliver explains just how overwhelmingly difficult it is to be exonerated for a wrongful conviction even in the face of overwhelming evidence of innocence. Focusing on cases including that of Joseph Amrine, exonerated in Missouri, Lamar Johnson and his 27-year fight to overturn his wrongful conviction, and Melissa Lucio, facing execution in Texas next month for a crime she didn’t commit, Oliver offers