
Oklahoma’s first of 25 executions is set for August
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

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,

Fifty years ago this week, the United States took a historic step toward a more fair, humane, less racist criminal justice system. On June 29,

The Oklahoma City law firm that conducted a pro bono independent investigation into the case of Richard Glossip, the second in line of the 25

Three California district attorneys are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that denied their right to intervene

The death penalty is off the table for Cleamon Johnson, an alleged Los Angeles gang leader accused of killing five people during the 1990s. Now,

Texas state Rep. Jeff Leach, who led a bipartisan effort in the legislature to commute Melissa Lucio’s death sentence last month, told the host of

Frank Atwood, imprisoned on death row since 1987 for the killing of an eight-year-old girl, is scheduled to be executed on June 8 in Arizona’s

A little over a week after Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced he was staying five state killings planned for this year, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine

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.