“In the Executioner’s Shadow” is a documentary that examines the death penalty from the per-spective of three very different people, and their very different experiences:
Application Deadline: January 22, 2018 Death Penalty Focus (DPF), a national nonprofit organization founded in 1988 to abolish the death penalty, is seeking an Executive
It’s not just amazing art that’s being produced on San Quentin’s death row, there is also some insightful, thought-provoking literature and poetry being written as
It’s not often we can share inspiring or uplifting information these days, but Nicola White, a London-based artist, has been working with prisoners at San
Death Penalty Focus is partnering with CharityBuzz to bring you FOUR new charity auctions–your chance to meet Patty Jenkins, Jeff Goldblum, Ben and Jerry, and
When Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg asked the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals last week to resentence Bobby Moore to life in prison, she
Carlos Ayestas was sentenced to death in Texas in 1997 for the murder of 67-year-old Santiaga Paneque two years earlier. But because a judge did
In Texas, 47-year-old Ruben Ramirez Cardenas, a Mexican citizen, was executed on Wednesday for the 1997 killing of his 16-year-old cousin, Mayra Laguna. He was
“We have lost one of the best among us, but each day when we do something good for a client, we are renewing our connection
Kevin Cooper has been on San Quentin’s death row for 33 years for a quadruple murder he didn’t commit. As we reported in the January Focus, the legions of people who believe in his innocence include Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge William A. Fletcher, former American Bar Association President Paulette Brown, at least 11 federal court judges, and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. We can now add the
Three states inched closer to repealing their death penalty laws this year. Washington, Utah, and New Hampshire have been debating repeal bills in the most recent legislative session, but so far, two have come up short, and one is still pending. In New Hampshire on Monday, the Senate will debate a bill that would repeal the death penalty and replace it with a sentence of life without parole. SB 593
In Ohio, Alva Campbell was found dead in his cell at Chillicothe Correctional Institution last Saturday, four months after he was removed from the state’s execution chamber because the execution team couldn’t find a viable vein in which to inject its lethal drugs. Campbell was 69. The Columbus Dispatch reports that a spokesperson for the Ohio Dept. of Rehabilitation and Correction said “there was no evidence of foul play and
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 Conversation, Temple University psychology professor Laurence Steinberg explains how recent research on adolescent psychological and brain development “provides a compelling basis for changing our laws” to “increasing the minimum age for purchasing firearms, lowering the voting age, and raising the age of eligibility for capital
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 state became the first English-speaking government to abolish capital punishment for murder and lesser crimes in 1846. The person responsible for making it part of the constitution? Eugene Wanger, author of Fighting the Death Penalty: A Fifty-Year Journey of Argument and Persuasion. The result is
February 14, 2018 The Honorable Edmund G. Brown Governor State of California State Capitol, Suite 1173 Sacramento, CA 95814 Dear Governor Brown, We write to urge that you act affirmatively on Kevin Cooper’s pending clemency petition. We are law school deans representing the University of California Berkeley School of Law, Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, Santa Clara School of Law, and the University of San Francisco School
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. Chief U.S. District Judge Karon Bowdre also ordered the corrections department to allow Hamm a full medical exam. The two-and-a-half hour ordeal last Thursday night was so botched it left Hamm “bruised, punctured, and limping from the attempted execution,” his attorney, Bernard Harcourt, wrote. What
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 statement, the governor cited several reasons for his decision. He noted that while Whitaker did not actually fire the gun that killed his mother and brother, and injured his father, he was sentenced to death while the actual gunman was not. He also cited the
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 his role in arranging the murders of his mother and brother. His father also was shot in the ambush and survived; he has forgiven his son and has been asking for clemency for him. Reuters reports that, at a news conference after the board’s recommendation,