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Death Penalty Focus is mourning the loss of our Board Member, Father Chris Ponnet, who died on October 7 in Los Angeles. He was 68. Ordained a priest in 1983, Father Chris was the pastor at the St. Camillus Center for Spiritual Care in Los Angeles for the last 30 years. He also served as the director of the Department of Spiritual Care at the Los Angeles County + USC
The State of Florida killed 63-year-old David Pittman today, its 12th execution this year, the highest number since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1976, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Gregg v. Georgia that the death penalty was constitutional, the Death Penalty Information Center reported. And Florida isn’t done yet. Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed two more death warrants for this year. Victor Tony Jones is scheduled to
The State of Tennessee executed Byron Black yesterday, a 69-year-old man who had a documented intellectual disability, end-stage kidney disease, congestive heart failure, and cardiomyopathy that required a pacemaker. His lawyer, public defender Kelley Henry, had tried to get a court order to, at a minimum, force the Tennessee Department of Corrections to deactivate his pacemaker before they killed him to prevent the device from being triggered when they injected
Today, Texas District Court Judge Austin Reeve Jackson granted Attorney General Ken Paxton’s request to schedule Robert Roberson’s execution for October 16, even though the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is currently considering new evidence further proving his innocence. Roberson, who has Autism Spectrum Disorder, was granted custody of his two-year-old daughter, Nikki, who was chronically ill, in November 2001. In 2002, Nikki was sick with a high fever and
The State of Florida killed 54-year-old Anthony Wainwright on Tuesday, the state’s sixth execution this year. State killing is never justified, and each one is a stain on this country’s soul, but Wainwright’s is particularly repugnant because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit denied a stay of execution for him in part because of the actions of his lead lawyer. As Criminal Law Specialist and DPF Board
Stephen Stanko, scheduled to be killed by the State of South Carolina later this month, is opting for lethal injection over the firing squad because he is “troubled by what appeared to be a lingering death of the last person in the state who was killed by firing squad,” his lawyers said in court filings, the Washington Post reported. Stanko is set to be killed on June 13 and was
Texas, Indiana, and Tennessee will each execute a person this week: two men will be killed on Tuesday and one man on Thursday. Texas, which has already executed three people this year, plans to kill Matthew Johnson on Tuesday by lethal injection. Johnson was convicted of killing Nancy Harris, a convenience store clerk, during a robbery in 2012. According to the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Johnson was
The State of South Carolina killed Brad Sigmon earlier this month. The 67-year-old Sigmon was seated in a chair with a hood over his head and a target pinned over his heart as a firing squad of three people aimed at him and fired their rifles. His death “was horrifying and violent,” Gerald “Bo” King, one of Sigmon’s attorneys, told CNN after witnessing the execution. Sigmon’s firing squad execution is
If things go as planned, South Carolina will kill Brad Sigmon on Friday by firing squad. It will be the state’s first execution by shooting in its history. The 67-year-old Sigmon chose a firing squad over the state’s two alternative options: electrocution (the default method) or lethal injection. Sigmon’s lawyer told NBC News that just the fact that Sigmon had to choose how to be killed “is horrifying.” Sigmon was