Voices: California People of Faith’s Terry McCaffrey
August 24, 2022
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
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
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
“Ten years seem so long, but when I think about the shooting, about losing Laura, it seems both like it happened yesterday and a million
Death Penalty Focus lost a dear friend and one of its most loyal supporters last week. Actor, activist, and all-around good guy, Ed Asner, died late last month at his home in Los Angeles. He was 91.
Donna Doolin Larsen is tired. She hasn’t rested since 1995, when she, her mother-in-law, and her then 22-year-old son Keith walked out of her doctor’s
It’s taken 28 years, but William Richards is officially an innocent man. Three weeks ago, a San Bernardino Superior Court judge declared Richards “factually innocent”
“I am confident there will come a day when we will have abolished the death penalty, and we will wonder how we could possibly have
An Interview with Michael Radelet, Ph.D. Michael Radelet is a sociologist at the University of Colorado-Boulder, where he served as chair of the Sociology Department
“Inchoate rage” is what compelled writer, director, producer Edward Zwick to co-produce and direct “Trial by Fire,” a feature film about the conviction and execution
“Everyone has a breaking point. Anyone can be convinced to confess, to lie. And it’s not only that they can but they do it at
(Editor’s Note: The front page of this newsletter spells Joe Giarattano’s name incorrectly in the headline. We would correct it, but the computer program we use won’t
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
When Vicente Benavides walked out of San Quentin State Prison late last month, the first prisoner in recent memory to walk off California’s death row,
One year ago, we wrote about the case of Walter Ogrod, a man whom many believe was wrongfully convicted of killing four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn
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
Nicola White is a London-based artist whose work is fashioned from the fragments of wood, glass, pottery, and other artifacts she finds on the banks
“I have hope. And because I have hope I have life.” For Kevin Cooper, who has been on San Quentin’s death row since 1985, it
“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:
“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
When Orange County Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals sentenced the man who killed her sister, wounded her mother, and killed seven others in the worst
John T. Thorngren is 76 years old, and has had three heart attacks and two open heart surgeries. But he had one last item on
“To spend 20 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, and emerge with his humanity and dignity intact … to spend 20 years, day in and day out, fighting for his freedom, it was just so extraordinary. It was totally compelling.”
“Marie is one of the unsung heroes from the early years of the fight against the modern death penalty. [Her] work on death row took a
“For justification of any punishment go back to the Enlightenment,” University of Baltimore Law Professor John Bessler says. “Philosophers such as Montesquieu and Cesare Beccaria
Last year, the editors of the Southwestern Law Review asked Stephen Rohde, a constitutional lawyer and DPF board chair, if he was interested in writing
For 16 years, Thomas Lowenstein has been following the case of Walter Ogrod, and has finally written a book about how he ended up on death row in spite of no real evidence of his guilt.
Four Spanish journalists were so affected by the experiences of death row exonerees they spent six years and much of their own money to make a documentary about a group of four men who call themselves the “Resurrection Club.”
“I’m no bleeding heart. I worked in Dade County Homicide for 16 of my 30 years on the job, and saw it all….”
For the past year-and-a-half, abolitionists, religious and political leaders, victims’ family members, and exonerees have shared their thoughts on the death penalty and why they work so hard to abolish it. Here are some of the highlights of those profiles.
He has devoted his life to ending the death penalty. After heading the campaign for Proposition 62, Mike Farrell returned this month to Death Penalty Focus, where he has served as president for almost 30 years. He talks about the campaign, its defeat, and where he thinks we should go from here.
“You know it’s hard every day sitting in a courtroom knowing you’re totally innocent,” Graham says. “I was framed because of my beliefs and because I was outspoken about prison conditions.”
“We actually thought at the time, naively, that a broader death penalty would deter criminals,” Briggs says. “We truly believed the bill would reduce crime in California.”
“I described to the jury how I had to tell my six-year old daughter that she would never see her daddy again. I told them about her putting a flower on the coffin, hugging his coffin. I pulled no punches, let me tell you. I made that jury understand how much pain I was in, how much pain my family was in. I was very persuasive.”
“If putting him to death would bring my mama back, I’d want him dead. But that won’t happen, so what’s the point of killing him? I’m just trying to do the best I can and honor the memory of my mama. I believe in my heart she wouldn’t want this boy put to death.”
“I have represented several death row inmates who were able to avoid execution, and I lost one, Tom Thompson. He was very likely innocent of capital murder, and his case has been chronicled by Judge Reinhardt as a miscarriage of justice.”
“I’m doing the best I can through letters,” Nancy remembers. “I just kept thinking that they’re going to figure out they’ve got the wrong guy. And Mom wrote that everything was going to be fine.”
“When I got called into the office and was told I was going to try this case I was fired up. I was excited to be recognized . . . It was a promotion,”
“In Florida, there is no witness room for the family and friends of the condemned. They have to leave after they say goodbye in the morning, and never see that person again. As the spiritual advisor, I remain in the death house until it’s time to prepare [the inmate] for the gurney. I’m present in the witness room, and I sit in the front row, where he can see me. He knows he can look at me when the time comes.”
“We chose Bill’s story because we wanted to crack open the failures of the criminal justice system, systemically. The racism, the lack of care for veterans and the mentally ill . . . . The only time the government takes control is in punishment.”
“We know from the grand jury report that my sister pleaded for her life, saying ‘Please don’t shoot me, you don’t have to do this.
“No one can speak personally about conducting and being personally responsible for killing people in the name of society better than I can.”
“You’re talking about a person who was basically saved by half of one cell. A cell the size of a mustard seed saved my life. I always think of the Bible and how Jesus said, ‘If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, nothing will be impossible for you.’ I knew I was an innocent man, and that trumped everything for me.”
“I will advocate for the death penalty to be abolished before the Lord calls me home. We can do better. We’re evolving on the issue of crime and punishment and we need a more restorative justice system. It behooves me, as a pro-life Bible conservative, to advance a whole life ethos.”
“The Golden Rule … reminds us of our responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development. This conviction has led me, from the beginning of my ministry, to advocate at different levels for the global abolition of the death penalty.”
“It is clear that there are overwhelming ethical, financial, and religious reasons to abolish the death penalty,” former president Jimmy Carter wrote in a 2012 op-ed titled “Show Death Penalty the Door”
“I have an obligation. I have a charge to keep. I don’t get tired. I won’t sell out. I won’t be bought out.”
In this month’s Focus, we wrote about a writ petition a coalition of prominent civil rights and legal organizations filed at the CA Supreme Court earlier this month. The writ maintains that “Extensive empirical evidence demonstrates that California’s capital punishment scheme is administered in a racially discriminatory manner and violates the equal protection provisions of the state Constitution.” The petition asks the Court to declare California’s capital sentencing scheme invalid
At least seven young men, all of whom were sentenced to death for so-called crimes committed when they were between the ages of 14-17 and who are members of the Shi’a religious minority, are at imminent risk of execution in Saudi Arabia, the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights announced today. In April 2020, the government said that it was suspending all death sentences against individuals who were under the
One hundred-ninety-seven individuals sentenced to die have been exonerated in the U.S. since 1973. Melissa Lucio, on Texas death row since 2008 for a crime no reasonable person ever believed she committed, could and should be the 198th. Lucio, now 55, was arrested in 2007 for the murder of her two-year-old daughter, Mariah, despite forensic and eyewitness evidence that her daughter died from a head injury she suffered in a
CA Gov. Gavin Newsom grants 37 pardons; 18 commutations Late last month, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced he pardoned 37 individuals and commuted the sentences of 18 others because “clemency [is] an important part of the criminal justice system that can incentivize accountability and rehabilitation, increase public safety by removing counterproductive barriers to successful reentry, correct unjust results in the legal system, and address the health needs of incarcerated people
“In states where the death penalty does exist, it shouldn’t be cruel, it shouldn’t be unusual (and) it definitely shouldn’t be experimental, like nitrogen hypoxia is,” Alabama State Rep. Neil Rafferty stated when he introduced HB 248, which would prevent the state from executing any more people using nitrogen gas, the Alabama Reflector reports. In January, the state killed Kenneth Smith using nitrogen gas, the first time a state has
Fifty-four-year-old Daniel Gwynn was freed from Pennsylvania’s death row on February 29, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office announced. He served nearly 30 years for a crime he didn’t commit. Gwynn was convicted of the 1994 arson murder of Marsha Smith based on false witness identification, Gwynn’s false confession, and withheld evidence. Police testified that witnesses identified Gwynn in a photo lineup, but the photos were never turned over to
Last Wednesday, the Oklahoma House Criminal Justice and Corrections Committee cleared House Bill 3138, the Death Penalty Moratorium Act, making it eligible to be heard on the House floor, Oklahoma Watch reports. The bill was introduced by Republican Rep. Kevin McDugle, who, although a death penalty supporter, has been troubled by several cases in which individuals were sentenced to death, most prominently Richard Glossip’s. “We cannot trust the system, period,
In this powerful and poignant update, Sister Helen Prejean, fueled by her outrage at the barbarism of capital punishment and her unwavering commitment to its abolition, shares the final, tragic moments of Ivan’s life through a lens filled with both tender compassion and fervent resolve. This is Sister Prejean’s firsthand account, deeply personal yet universally resonant, urging us to see beyond the immediate tragedy to the larger call to action
Idaho corrections officials attempted to kill 73-year-old Thomas Creech today, but after an hour of repeated attempts to find a vein for its lethal injection drugs, they called it off. It was the state’s first execution attempt since 2012. “We are angered but not surprised that the State of Idaho botched the execution,” Creech’s lawyers said in a statement after the attempt, according to the New York Times. “This is