Terry McCaffrey is on a mission. Chair of the East-West San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the California People of Faith and Amnesty International’s Death
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt has issued a 60-day stay of execution for Richard Glossip. The stay is effective September 22, the day Glossip was scheduled
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted a stay of execution to Ramiro Gonzales earlier this month, two days before he was scheduled to be
Oklahoma’s plan to kill 25 men between next month and December 2024 has been met with outrage and disbelief. Former Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry and
In California, three death sentences were overturned by state and federal courts in the past few weeks, the Death Penalty Information Center reports. “Richard Clark,
In her New York Times piece, “After Parkland, One Question Remains: What Is Justice?”, Audra D. S. Burch writes about Tom and Gena Hoyer, whose
“It was so frustrating to see these horrible, untrue claims go unconfronted. I felt I could go after them and call them out for what
Amnesty International called on President Biden to make good on his 2020 campaign promise and abolish the federal death penalty, and commute the sentences of
The Death Penalty Information Center marked the 50th anniversary of Furman v. Georgia by releasing a census of death sentences handed down from June 29,
In California, a new report from the U.S. Department of Justice describes how the Orange County District Attorney’s Office and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department “systematically violated criminal defendants’ Sixth Amendment right to counsel and Fourteenth Amendment right to due process of law” in its longtime use of a secret jailhouse informant program. “The failure to protect these basic constitutional guarantees not only deprives individual defendants of their rights, it
In his piece, “The Supreme Court Shows No Signs of Slaking Its Thirst for Capital Punishment,” in The New Republic, Matt Ford points out that the U.S. Supreme Court “does not consider every contentious legal issue in every term,” except “perhaps” for capital punishment. “Since the court effectively abolished capital punishment in 1972 and then brought it back in 1976, the justices have served as de facto administrators of America’s
On Monday, October 10, 2022, at noon Pacific/3 p.m. Eastern, in recognition of World Day Against the Death Penalty, DPF presented “A Conversation with Death Penalty Focus President Mike Farrell and Professor Juan E. Mendez, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture.”
The murder convictions of two East Contra Costa men were reversed by a Superior Court judge last week, who ruled that the prosecutor and police testimony violated the Racial Justice Act of 2020, the San Jose Mercury News reports. The Racial Justice Act prohibits the state from seeking or obtaining a criminal conviction or from imposing a sentence based on race, ethnicity, or national origin. But it was prospective only,
(Update: Today, just two weeks after Alabama corrections officials botched the execution of Alan Miller, the state wants to try again. According to AL.com, the attorney general confirmed that he has asked the Alabama Supreme Court to set another execution date for Miller.) As reported in last week’s Focus, for the second time in two months, Alabama corrections officials botched an execution on September 22, when they rushed to kill Alan
“Cole is a man who is so debilitated by paranoid schizophrenia and brain damage that he barely speaks or moves, crawls on his cell floor or drags himself into and out of a wheelchair, and cannot care for his most basic hygiene. It should shock our collective conscience” that Oklahoma plans to kill Benjamin Cole on October 20, Catholic Conference of Oklahoma executive director/state coordinator for Oklahoma Conservatives Concerned About
South Carolina’s plan to execute men and women by electrocution or firing squad constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the state Constitution, a state judge ruled earlier this month. The legislature “ignored advances in scientific research and evolving standards of humanity and decency” when it voted last year to force people to be killed by electric chair or firing squad if they refuse to choose a method of
Last week, the Oklahoma law firm Reed Smith released a third supplemental report on its investigation into the case of Richard Glossip. He was sentenced to death for his alleged role in the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese, the owner of the Oklahoma motel Glossip managed. The actual killer was Justin Sneed, a motel maintenance worker who admitted to beating Van Treese to death with a baseball bat. But
It appears that for the second time in two months, Alabama corrections officials botched an execution with their rushed attempt to kill Alan Miller last Thursday night. The U.S. Supreme Court had lifted an injunction staying Miller’s execution, giving the execution team about three hours to find a vein for their lethal injection drugs. They failed and were forced to abandon the killing because the death warrant was expiring. What
