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
I knew if I wanted to see Tom one last time I had to leave for the prison soon. It was already late in the
It’s called ethnic adjustment. “This practice is a symptom of a dysfunctional death penalty system where prosecutors seek to ‘win’ by executing the mentally disabled
A story that has stuck with me over the decades comes from a school civics text. A criminal came into the town of Milwaukee and
The second trend which has been percolating beneath the surface for more than two decades is a recognition of the full cost of the death
The Tennessee Criminal Court of Appeals has affirmed a lower court ruling that Pervis Payne, who spent 34 years on Tennessee’s death row before being
In Alabama last week, where corrections officials botched three executions in a row last year because of the execution team’s inability to insert IV lines
Gerald Pizzuto, Jr., has been on Idaho’s death row since his 1986 conviction of the murders of Berta Herndon and her nephew Del Herndon in
“It’s quite horrifying — as it’s intended to be,” is how the spiritual advisor who was in the death chamber with Michael Tisius when the
Florida plans to continue its frantic pace of executions. The state announced it will kill Michael Duane Zack III in October, its sixth execution this
Aba Gayle, who became a passionate opponent of the death penalty after her 19-year-old daughter, Catherine Blount, was murdered, died in Silverton, Oregon, in late
A federal jury in Pittsburgh sentenced Robert Bowers to death earlier this month for his October 2018 attack on the Tree of Life synagogue that
(This post was updated to reflect that Johnny Johnson was killed by the State of Missouri on Tuesday night.) The State of Missouri killed Johnny
In California, Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin announced late last month that he will seek the death penalty for 43-year-old Jesse Ceazar Navarro, accused
