Application Deadline: January 22, 2018 Death Penalty Focus (DPF), a national nonprofit organization founded in 1988 to abolish the death penalty, is seeking an Executive
It passed by the slimmest of margins in November’s election, but Prop 66 has been stayed by the California Supreme Court since a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality was filed in the aftermath of the election. DPF board member and death penalty attorney Aundre Herron brings us up to date on the latest developments in the legal challenges facing this problematic initiative.
“Excessive bail shall not be required, or excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted,” says the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. You
This month marks the 25th anniversary of the Los Angeles riots. It also marks the 25th anniversary of the resumption of executions in California after
It passed by the slimmest of margins in November’s election, but Prop 66 has been stayed by the California Supreme Court since a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality was filed in the aftermath of the election. DPF board member and death penalty attorney Aundre Herron brings us up to date on the latest developments in the legal challenges facing this problematic initiative.
A while back I received a message from someone who was deeply angry about my opposition to the death penalty and let me know it in
Whatever your view of the current political scene, President Trump’s nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to replace Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court
DPF President Mike Farrell wrote a letter to the governor of Alabama asking him to stop the execution of Ronald B. Smith because Smith’s jury recommended a life sentence, but the judge overrode the jury and sentenced him to death. Only Alabama allows a judge to override a jury’s sentence in a death penalty case.
Dear Friend, I just want to say thank you, but I can’t resist saying a bit more. Thank you doesn’t seem to me to be
In this month’s Focus, we wrote about a writ petition a coalition of prominent civil rights and legal organizations filed at the CA Supreme Court earlier this month. The writ maintains 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 asks the Court to declare California’s capital sentencing scheme invalid
At least seven young men, all of whom were sentenced to death for so-called crimes committed when they were between the ages of 14-17 and who are members of the Shi’a religious minority, are at imminent risk of execution in Saudi Arabia, the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights announced today. In April 2020, the government said that it was suspending all death sentences against individuals who were under the
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
