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In brief: July 2023

In California, Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin announced late last month that he will seek the death penalty for 43-year-old Jesse Ceazar Navarro, accused

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In brief: June 2023

In Oklahoma, Anthony Sanchez, on death row for 27 years, told CBS News in a telephone interview that he will reject his opportunity for a

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In brief: April 2023

In Texas, a district court judge withdrew the April 26 execution date for Ivan Cantu. CBS Texas reports that the postponement was granted to give

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While we’re on the subject . . .

“Under the Eighth Amendment, execution by nitrogen is surely unusual because it has never been used as a method of execution in this country or elsewhere, as far as we know. It is also likely to cause needless agony and suffering in the execution chamber,” Bernard Harcourt writes in his New York Times op-ed, “Alabama Has a Horrible New Way of Killing People on Death Row.” Harcourt knows what cruel

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In brief: September 2023

Alabama  South Carolina In Tennessee, the only woman on the state’s death row is asking to have her death sentence vacated. Christa Pike was 18 when she was sentenced in 1996, the youngest woman to be sent to death row in the United States since 1972. Her lawyers argue that last year’s ruling by the Tennessee Supreme Court in State v. Booker that mandatory life sentences for juveniles in homicide

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Two men, both initially sentenced to death, are exonerated after serving decades

Two men, one in Oregon and the other in Oklahoma, both initially sentenced to death, who spent a combined 73 years in prison, have been released in the past couple of months based on evidence of their innocence.  Jesse Johnson Jesse Johnson, who spent 17 years on Oregon’s death row and 25 years in custody for a crime he didn’t commit, was freed earlier this month. He is the 194th

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Sponsors put two major California criminal justice bills on hold until next year

At least two moderate criminal justice reform bills stalled in the California legislature this month, a surprising development in a state perceived to be so progressive.  California Assembly Bill 280 would have limited the time corrections officials could restrict those imprisoned in the state’s jails, prisons, and immigration centers in solitary confinement. Senate Bill 94 would have allowed judges to review life-without-parole sentences for people convicted of the offense before

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LA DA Gascón charges suspect in LA County sheriff’s deputy killing with murder

Almost immediately after being elected Los Angeles County District Attorney in 2020, George Gascón issued a “Death Penalty Policy” promising that his office would not seek the death penalty and, in addition, “will not seek an execution date for any person sentenced to death. . . . will not defend existing death sentences and will engage in a thorough review of every existing death penalty judgment from Los Angeles County

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A man who spent 17 years on Oregon’s death row for a crime he didn’t commit is free

A man who spent 17 years on Oregon’s death row and 25 years in custody for a crime he didn’t commit was freed earlier this month. He is the 194th person exonerated from death row since 1973, the Death Penalty Information Center reported.  Jesse Johnson was convicted and sentenced to death for killing Harriet Lavern Thompson in Salem in March 1998. He maintained his innocence from the time he was

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Ohio legislators introduce a bipartisan bill to abolish the death penalty

Because it doesn’t have access to lethal injection drugs, Ohio’s last execution was in 2018. And now, a group of bipartisan legislators has introduced a House bill, a companion piece to a pending Senate bill, to abolish capital punishment altogether. But, according to WTGV-13, while sponsors say they have more support this year than they have previously, “Senate President Matt Huffman, who controls what gets put up for a vote

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Pervis Payne is eligible for parole in Tennessee

The Tennessee Criminal Court of Appeals has affirmed a lower court ruling that Pervis Payne, who spent 34 years on Tennessee’s death row before being resentenced to life in prison last year, can serve his two life sentences concurrently, the Commercial Appeal reported. The ruling, issued late last month, means Payne will be eligible for parole in less than four years.  Payne, now 54, was sentenced to death in 1988

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In brief: August 2023

In Alabama last week, where corrections officials botched three executions in a row last year because of the execution team’s inability to insert IV lines for lethal drugs, Attorney General Steve Marshall asked the state Supreme Court last week to set an execution date for Kenneth Smith and indicated the state plans to kill Smith by nitrogen hypoxia. Smith’s execution was called off last November after the state repeatedly failed

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