Voices: Richard Leo
March 8, 2019
“Everyone has a breaking point. Anyone can be convinced to confess, to lie. And it’s not only that they can but they do it at
“Everyone has a breaking point. Anyone can be convinced to confess, to lie. And it’s not only that they can but they do it at
California Gov. Gavin Newsom today ordered additional DNA testing on evidence in the case of Kevin Cooper, who was sent to death row almost 34
The Toledo Blade reports that Ohio Governor Mike DeWine is putting executions on hold because, he said today, “Ohio is not going to execute someone
Proposition 66 was passed by popular vote in 2016. Proponents insisted the proposition would speed up the process of capital trials and executions. It was big
Republican Governor Mike DeWine postponed the execution of Warren Keith Henness late last month and ordered the state Department of Rehabilitation & Correction to “to
“Kevin Cooper Case: Was the Wrong Man Convicted in the 1983 Chino Hills Massacre?” was the title of a two-hour episode on a “48 Hours”
In California, the state Supreme Court unanimously overturned the death sentence of Jamelle Edward Armstrong, convicted of killing a Southern California woman in 1998. The
In her op-ed, “Want to Keep Ohio’s Death Penalty? Fix it First,” in the Columbus Dispatch, Phyllis L. Crocker commends Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s order
“I just couldn’t believe they could do this to me. I came out broke and homeless.” William (Bill) Richards is referring to the San Bernardino
New Mexico closed its death row late last month. The last two condemned prisoners, Timothy Allen and Robert Fry, had their sentences vacated by the NM Supreme Court on June 28, and will be resentenced to life in prison. New Mexico actually abolished its death penalty in 2009 — 10 years ago — but because Fry and Allen’s convictions and sentencing occurred prior to 2009, they remained on death row.
In his chapter, “Capital Punishment,” in the American Bar Association’s The State of Criminal Justice 2019, Ronald J. Tabak reviews significant developments through the past year up to and including the May 30 abolition of the death penalty in New Hampshire. He notes that since the death penalty resumed in 1972 after the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Furman v. Georgia, “There was not in 2018 a single county in
A report published today by the ACLU, “A Closer Look at Los Angeles County’s Troubling Death-Penalty Track Record,” finds that under LA District Attorney Jackie Lacey, the DA’s office “continues to waste the jurisdiction’s precious time and resources on death penalty prosecutions.” And, the report notes, these capital sentences reveal “stunning racial disparities that eviscerate any claim Lacey may make about representing constituents or delivering what the people of L.A.
Early last month, a small group of California district attorneys organized what it called a “Victims of Murder Justice Tour” in a few cities around the state in which they held news conferences with family members of victims to protest Governor Gavin Newsom’s moratorium on the death penalty. Several of the DAs are from counties that fall within what law professor Robert J. Smith called the “Death Belt” of the United
“I have no reason to believe government officials are deliberately hiding the way they pay for capital trials, but I do believe taxpayers in death penalty states are paying for these trials in ways they would not realize.” And some of the ways they’re paying, according to West Virginia University Economics Professor Alexander Lundberg in his recently published paper, “On the Public Finance of Capital Punishment,” is by paying higher property
Twenty-one years after New Hampshire legislator Renny Cushing introduced his first bill to repeal the death penalty, he was finally successful last month when the legislature overrode Gov. Chris Sununu’s veto, and abandoned capital punishment. Twenty one states have now outlawed the barbaric punishment, and four others have moratoria in place. In addition, the repeal means no state in New England has the death penalty. “Our efforts do pay off
The machinery of death was in high gear in the South in May. Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida each killed a man, and Alabama executed two. Georgia began the month by executing Scotty Garnell Morrow on May 2 for the 1994 murder of his ex-girlfriend, Barbara Ann Young, and her friend, Tonya Woods. He was also convicted of shooting a third woman, LaToya Horne, who survived. Morrow, who apologized to the
Stating that, “After the Florida Supreme Court’s decision on the death penalty, it became abundantly clear to me that the death penalty law in the state of Florida is in direct conflict with my view and my vision for the administration of justice,” Aramis Ayala announced that she will not seek re-election as Orange-Osceola State Attorney. Ayala made the announcement in a video posted on her Facebook page. Soon after
“I can’t think of a more exciting time to be part of the movement to abolish the death penalty,” new DPF Executive Director Nancy Haydt says. “With New Hampshire’s repeal just a few weeks ago, 25 states — half the states in the nation — are without a death penalty or with a moratorium in place right now. It’s clear the tide is turning and consensus is building that this