The mass shootings last weekend have caused unimaginable pain and suffering. Dozens of people are dead. Hundreds of family members and friends are grieving. Entire
The acclaimed documentary is now on Amazon’s video streaming platform.
In 1986, my 70-year-old mother was asleep in her own bed when a teenaged neighbor broke into her home, raped her, and then beat her
The Department of Justice announced today that it has scheduled five executions in December and January; the first federal executions since 2003. “The federal death
Death penalty lawyer and DPF board member Robert M. Sanger believes that the moratorium Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in March created “a paradigm shift in
“In Los Angeles County, which is known as a bastion of progressivism, we have a system that is churning out more death sentences than any
Three weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 2010 conviction of Curtis Flowers, who has been tried six times for a 1996 quadruple murder
Two milestones were reached in June, starkly illustrating how broken the death penalty in the United States is. In North Carolina, prosecutors formally dismissed all
New Mexico closed its death row late last month. The last two condemned prisoners, Timothy Allen and Robert Fry, had their sentences vacated by the
Living on Death Row examines the “psychology of waiting to die.” Edited by Hans Toch, James R. Acker and Vincent Martin Bonventre, the book presents analyses from psychologists, legal professionals, and criminologists, as well as first-person accounts from prison officials and death row prisoners, to “reveal the systemic, physical, and moral conditions that define and underlie death row, as well as the humanity of death row inmates who struggle to
The Alaska man accused of killing five people and wounding six in a shooting at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in January 2017 will be sentenced to life in prison without parole in a plea agreement that his lawyers and prosecutors reached yesterday. The agreement is especially surprising because the 28-year-old Esteban Santiago was facing federal charges because the shooting took place at an international airport. But the Miami Herald reports
Kenneth Clair, who spent more than 30 years on California’s death row before having his sentence reduced, is still fighting to prove his innocence. Clair was convicted of the murder of 25-year-old nanny Linda Rodgers in Santa Ana in November 1984, in spite of the fact that two witnesses say the man who killed her was white, and DNA evidence at the crime scene didn’t match his. He was sent
Richard Kamler, who died last year, was an activist and artist who used his skills to protest capital punishment in an unusual and highly effective way. For example, he recorded lions at the San Francisco Zoo, and in April 1992, on the night Robert Alton Harris was executed, Kamler took a boat out on San Francisco Bay near San Quentin Prison. As Sam Whiting in the San Francisco Chronicle reported
Three states, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Alabama, have recently given the go-ahead to execute prisoners using nitrogen gas, a new, untested, untried method of killing women and men – or, as Oklahoma State Representative Mike Christian refers to them, “these beasts.” Let that sink in for a moment, if you will. . . . Mr. Christian’s new law makes Oklahoma one of three states that may soon execute prisoners by placing
Just how old, how sick, or how mentally ill does a death row prisoner have to be for the government to opt not to execute him and let him die in prison? It’s a question that grows ever more pertinent as the men and women on death rows around the country grow older, suffering from the common physical and mental problems of aging, greatly exacerbated by the additional stressors of
Stating that there’s “a major gap in resources for lawyers who defend capital cases,” the American Bar Association is launching The Capital Clemency Resource Initiative, a project that it says will provide “state-specific information about clemency in death penalty states, plus past petitions, court decisions, academic papers and ABA policy on the subject.” The information lawyers will now have access to includes a manual, Representing Death-Sentenced Prisoners in Clemency: A
A new poll conducted by Quinnipiac University finds that American voters choose life without parole over the death penalty 51-37 percent, the first time a majority chose life over death since the poll first asked the question in 2004. It’s an important development because by including the option of life without parole, the survey shows that the majority opts for the latter. Too often, pollsters question voters about their support