The Toledo Blade reports that Ohio Governor Mike DeWine is putting executions on hold because, he said today, “Ohio is not going to execute someone
As many as 35 death penalty cases in California’s Alameda County from the past 30 years are under review after a deputy district attorney discovered notes from the 1993 death penalty conviction of Ernest Dykes indicating that prosecutors excluded Jewish and Black female individuals from the jury pool. In a press release issued https://www.alcoda.org/category/press-releases/ Monday, Alameda County DA Pamela Price said that after “the notes were promptly disclosed to the
This week, a coalition of prominent civil rights and legal organizations filed a writ petition https://tinyurl.com/u3urp475 at the CA Supreme Court stating 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 was filed by the Legal Defense Fund, the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, the ACLU of Northern California, WilmerHale, and
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
