
SCOTUS grants Glossip a stay of execution
Last Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Richard Glossip a stay of execution to give the Court time to review two pending petitions. Glossip was

Last Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Richard Glossip a stay of execution to give the Court time to review two pending petitions. Glossip was

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

“It’s official. The death penalty is no longer in state law,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee tweeted last week after signing SB 5087. In a follow-up

The bill Florida Gov. Ron De Santis signed into law last week will allow juries to recommend a death sentence with an 8-4 vote, the

Not even the unprecedented presence of Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who attended the hearing to advocate for clemency for Richard Glossip, was enough to

SB 94, which would allow judges to review death penalty and life-without-parole sentences for people who have been imprisoned for at least 20 years, passed

In his guest essay, “San Quentin Could Be the Future of Prisons in America,” in the New York Times, Bill Keller writes that “there are

The State of Florida killed Louis Gaskin on Wednesday. The state has now killed more than 100 people since the death penalty was reinstated in

“After thorough and serious deliberation, I have concluded that I cannot stand behind the murder conviction and death sentence of Richard Glossip,” Oklahoma Attorney General

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.