While we’re on the subject . . .
March 9, 2018
In his article, “When Can You Buy a Gun, Vote, or Be Sentenced to Death? Science Suggests U.S. Should Revise Legal Age Limits”, in The
In his article, “When Can You Buy a Gun, Vote, or Be Sentenced to Death? Science Suggests U.S. Should Revise Legal Age Limits”, in The
The State of Michigan is the only state to have a death penalty ban in its constitution. That ban was enshrined 116 years after the
February 14, 2018 The Honorable Edmund G. Brown Governor State of California State Capitol, Suite 1173 Sacramento, CA 95814 Dear Governor Brown, We
A federal judge told Alabama prison officials on Tuesday to preserve all evidence related to last week’s botched execution of Doyle Lee Hamm, CNN reported.
Minutes before he was scheduled to be executed, Thomas Whitaker’s sentence was commuted to life without parole yesterday by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. In a
Today, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted unanimously to recommend clemency for Thomas Whitaker. Whitaker is scheduled to be executed on Thursday for
Washington’s state Senate voted to end the death penalty by a vote of 26-22 yesterday. The bill, which would repeal the death penalty and replace
Tennessee, which hasn’t put anyone to death since 2009, is now hoping to execute eight people before June 1. That means eight executions in four
Thirty-five years ago, the American Bar Association was one of the first organizations to call for abolition of the death penalty for those under the
I am furious! I am disgusted. I am an American and this perfidy is being carried out in my name. That the would-be ruler of this country could be so twisted as to conceive of a policy that forcibly separates children from their parents is an outrage, a barbarity, an atrocity. That his sinister, cretinous batboy could enact such a policy under the guise of protecting me from the purported
The State of Texas plans to execute 34-year-old Christopher Young next month. He was sentenced to death in 2006 for the murder of 55-year-old convenience store owner Hasmukhbhai Patel. But the Christopher Young who was sentenced to death 12 years ago is not the same person. That 22-year-old was a gang member, and a self-confessed alcoholic and drug abuser. This Chris Young is a thoughtful, caring, gifted artist, who says,
In a unanimous vote, the San Francisco Labor Council, which is affiliated with 150 unions, and represents more than 100 thousand union members and their families, passed a resolution this week calling on Gov. Jerry Brown to grant Kevin Cooper’s appeal for advanced DNA testing, “and grant him a reprieve from the death penalty.” The resolution lists 13 reasons why Cooper’s case needs to be investigated, and DNA testing to
The DPF Board of Directors announced this week that longtime social and criminal justice advocate Magdaleno Rose-Avila has been appointed to the position of Executive Director. Announcing the decision, DPF President Mike Farrell said,”I couldn’t be happier to announce that Leno has signed on to lead Death Penalty Focus, an organization he has supported for many years. Leno’s commitment to social and criminal justice is demonstrated by his lifelong work
Bobby James Moore will not be leaving Texas’ death row any time soon. On Wednesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that Moore is not too intellectually disabled to execute. The state’s high court said it was basing its 5-3 ruling on current clinical standards, as mandated by the U.S. Supreme Court. In a March 2017 ruling, SCOTUS found that Moore was improperly sentenced to death because the state
When the California Supreme Court unanimously ruled to overturn the death sentence of Robert Lewis Jr. late last month finding “substantial evidence” that he is intellectually disabled, it “set a strong precedent on Atkins law,” Lewis’s attorney, Robert M. Sanger, says. In Atkins v. Virginia (2002), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing the intellectually disabled constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. However, the decision left it
“In 34 years at the New York Times, I’ve never come across a case in America as outrageous as Kevin Cooper’s,” Nicholas Kristof wrote in a recent column about Kevin Cooper and the stunning injustice of his case. Cooper, who is 59, was sentenced to death for the murder of four people in a suburb of Los Angeles in June 1983. He has been on San Quentin’s death row for
The ACLU of Northern California won a round in court late last month when a Marin County Superior Court judge ruled that its challenge to California’s new lethal injection protocol could go forward. The California Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation had tried to adopt the new protocol without revealing details and without opening it up to public comment. “The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has a history of issuing
In Texas, a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals panel said yesterday it will consider parts of an appeal that lawyers for death row prisoner Andre Thomas presented in oral argument, but not the question of whether he should not be executed because he is mentally ill. Thomas gouged out both of his own eyes, eating one of them. His lawyers argued that their client suffers from schizophrenia, and was “actively