While we’re on the subject . . . .
December 14, 2018
In her article, “This Is What Wrongful Conviction Does to a Family,” in Politico, Lara Bazelon looks at the arrest of two men for the 1982
In her article, “This Is What Wrongful Conviction Does to a Family,” in Politico, Lara Bazelon looks at the arrest of two men for the 1982
In Texas, three men were executed in the space of four weeks: 43-year-old Alvin Braziel was executed on Tuesday for the 1993 murder of Douglas
There was much to celebrate after this week’s election, especially the strides made in criminal justice reform. In Louisiana, Amendment 2 passed easily, which means
He spent 14 years, 10 of them on death row, and on Monday, Florida prosecutors announced they would not proceed with a retrial for Clemente
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in the case of 50-year-old Russell Bucklew, a Missouri death row prisoner who came within a few
In Mississippi, a man who has been on death row for over 20 years, after being tried six times for a quadruple murder in 1996,
In his op-ed in the Fort Worth Star Telegram, “It’s Wrong for an Imperfect System to Impose an Irreversible Punishment,” former district attorney Tim Cole notes
Tennessee’s nine-year break in executions ended in August when the state killed Billy Ray Irick by lethal injection. Last week, Edmund Zagorski was executed by
There is nothing new about comics depicting tragedy. Comics and graphic novels have been covering serious topics for years. Art Spiegelman’s classic graphic novel, Maus,
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, his sentence was commuted, but only hours before he was scheduled to be killed by the same lethal injection method that caused John Grant to vomit and convulse violently during his execution just three weeks earlier. And his sentence was commuted to life without the
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 just how broken California’s death penalty system is. Late last month, the committee released its final report, reiterating that recommendation, specifying what can and should be done until it’s abolished. The only way to repeal the death penalty in California is by initiative, and until
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 in the same academic “bubble” of Japa-nese courses, venturing out only to learn the very basics of other academia through GE courses. Some of the classes I have taken have made a lasting impact on me as a student; but most of these classes come
“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 humanity. The death penalty does not protect society; it dishonors it,” said Robert Badinter, the French justice minister who led the successful effort to abolish capital punishment in France 40 years ago, at an event marking the anniversary last month. In the U.S., where there
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 pass.” Lisa Needham writes that “The notion that the Court might be the final link in a chain of decisions that results in an innocent person’s death does not seem to cause much consternation for the commission.” She argues that “a series of both-sides takes
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.