Four men sentenced to death in Texas have filed a class-action lawsuit against the state corrections department alleging that subjecting the 185 men on death
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals granted a motion filed by newly-elected Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond to slow down the state’s frenzied plan to
2022 was the “year of the botched execution,” according to the Death Penalty Information Center. And now, a 166-page report from a law firm commissioned
The California Supreme Court granted review earlier this month on whether people serving life-without-parole sentences for crimes committed when they were between the ages of
California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an Executive Order in May 2021, calling for an investigation into Kevin Cooper’s 1985 death penalty conviction for a quadruple
In Oklahoma, Scott Eizember was killed last week. Eizember was sentenced to death in 2003 for the murders of A.J and Patsy Cantrell. His execution
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is moving ahead with its plan to dismantle its death row in San Quentin State Prison and move
“The death penalty is beyond redemption. It is unfair and unfixable, and it turns states into killers in the name of vengeance against killers,” the
“2022 can be called ‘the year of the botched execution,’” the Death Penalty Information Center stated in its annual report on capital punishment in the
In Texas, corrections officials executed two men this month, Gary Green and Arthur Brown, Jr. Texas has killed five men this year. With last week’s withdrawal of the March 30 death warrant for Anibal Canales, Jr., its last execution scheduled for this year is set for April 26, when the state plan to kill Ivan Cantu. Brown was sentenced to death for killing four people in Houston in 1992. He
A state district judge withdrew the April 5 execution warrant for Andre Thomas earlier this month to give Thomas’s lawyers time to prepare for a hearing to determine his mental competency. Thomas’s lawyer, Maurie Levin, immediately issued a statement hailing the judge’s order. “The Court’s order gives Mr. Thomas the time necessary to make the threshold showing that his lifelong, profound mental illness, characterized by fixed auditory and visual hallucinations,
Declaring that he wants to “literally transform this place,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last week that San Quentin State Prison will convert from a maximum-security prison to a “one-of-a-kind facility focused on improving public safety through rehabilitation and education.” In a news conference inside the prison, Newsom said it will be renamed the “San Quentin Rehabilitation Center.” Under “the direction of an advisory group composed of state and world-renowned
Bucking a trend of decreasing support for the death penalty in the United States, Republican-dominated legislatures in South Carolina and Florida are attempting to expand their states’ use of capital punishment. In South Carolina, Republican lawmakers introduced a bill that would make women who have an abortion subject to the death penalty. The “South Carolina Prenatal Equal Protection Act of 2023” removes all exceptions, including rape, the health of the
Three months after a series of botched executions caused Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to call for a pause in state killing to allow time for a “top-to-bottom review,” of the state’s broken execution protocol, the state is ready to try again. In a letter to state Attorney General Steve Marshall last Friday, Ivey said it “is time to resume our duty of carrying out lawful death sentences,” AL.com reports. According
Florida corrections officials killed Donald Dillbeck last Thursday. They did so despite the extensive evidence of his horrific sexual and physical abuse as a child, the brain damage he suffered from his mother’s alcohol abuse during her pregnancy, and his serious mental illness. They did so despite the pleas of 29 evangelical Christian leaders, and hundreds of people around the country who signed petitions, called the governor, and marched in
Former Death Penalty Focus board member Donald Spoto died earlier this month. He was 81. His death from a brain hemorrhage was announced by his husband, Danish artist, and school administrator Ole Flemming Larsen. The couple lived near Copenhagen in Denmark. A prolific writer, whose dozens of books included biographies of prominent men and women from the fields of politics, show business, and religion, he was as complex and brilliant
“Justice Department standards on federal death penalty called confusing,” was the headline in a recent Washington Post article. The paper interviewed federal defense lawyers and legislators about President Biden’s and Attorney General Merrick Garland’s inconsistent policy on the issue of the death penalty and the cases in which the DOJ decides to seek it. The paper notes that “Garland has deauthorized 25 death penalty cases that were started under previous
The Death Penalty Information Center reports that the first state killing this year occurred on January 3, when Missouri executed Amber McLaughlin. Texas followed one week later with the execution of Robert Fratta, and Oklahoma two days later with the killing of Scott Eizember. Texas killed Wesley Ruiz and John Balentine this month, Missouri executed Leonard Taylor, and Florida killed Donald Dillbeck last week. Four more executions are scheduled for
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