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In brief: April 2022

In Missouri, Carman Deck is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday for the 1996 killings of James and Zelma Long. Deck’s 1998 death sentence had

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In brief: March 2022

In Kentucky, a bill prohibiting the execution of people with serious mental illness passed last week. HB 269 adds mental illness to the list of

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Join us for a conversation on “Torture and the Death Penalty”

Death Penalty Focus is marking the 20th World Day Against the Death Penalty with a webinar featuring a discussion on “Torture and the Death Penalty” with DPF President Mike Farrell and Professor Juan E. Méndez, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture. The discussion will air on Monday, October 10, 2022, at noon Pacific/3 p.m. Eastern and is free of charge. “The most frequent setting where torture and coercion take

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While we’re on the subject. . .

“His story, of a young boy victimized by addiction, poverty, violence, the foster care system and later the justice system, profoundly touched me then, and still does today,” Oprah Winfrey said in explaining why she chose Jarvis Jay Masters’ 1997 memoir, That Bird Has My Wings, as her latest selection for Oprah’s Book Club. Masters was first incarcerated at California’s San Quentin Prison in 1981 for armed robbery and was

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Alabama judge stays Alan Miller’s execution

Alabama may not kill Alan Eugene Miller on Thursday, AL.com reports. A federal judge issued a stay for Miller yesterday after Miller argued he had officially chosen nitrogen hypoxia as his method of execution, a protocol the Alabama Department of Corrections has admitted it is not ready to carry out. The 57-year-old Miller was scheduled to die at 6 p.m. Eastern on Thursday for shooting three men in August 1999

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Toforest Johnson asks Alabama Supreme Court for a new trial

Toforest Johnson, who has been on Alabama’s death row since 1998 for a crime he likely didn’t commit, is asking the state Supreme Court for a new trial. His lawyers asked the Court to review a lower court decision denying Johnson a new trial in a filing last Friday, the Washington Post reports.  Johnson was sentenced to death for killing Birmingham deputy sheriff William G. Hardy, who was working as

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California’s homicide rate and the conservative law-and-order myth

Conservatives love to blame high violent crime rates on progressives and their criminal justice reform efforts, especially in California, which is why the recently-released state report, “2021 Homicide in California,” from Attorney General Rob Bonta was such an eye-opening counter-narrative. According to the report, among counties with populations of 100,000 or more, the three with the highest murder rates were Kern, Merced, and Tulare. The three with the lowest rates

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Court finds South Carolina’s execution methods unconstitutional

South Carolina’s plan to execute men and women by electrocution or firing squad constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the state Constitution, a state judge ruled today, the State reports. The legislature  “ignored advances in scientific research and evolving standards of humanity and decency” when it voted last year to force people to be killed by electric chair or firing squad if they refuse to choose a method

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Albert Woodfox

Albert Woodfox, who spent 42 years in solitary confinement in Louisiana State Penitentiary (also known as Angola Prison) for a crime he didn’t commit before being freed in 2016, died earlier this month of complications from Covid. He was 75. Known as one of the “Angola Three,” Woodfox was arrested often as a teenager in New Orleans and later, in New York, where he joined the Black Panthers. In 1972,

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American Psychological Association calls for death penalty ban on those under 21

The American Psychological Association called on the courts, Congress, and state legislatures to ban the death penalty for people younger than 21, “based on scientific research indicating that adolescent brains continue to develop well beyond age 18.” While the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roper v. Simmons (2005) that it was unconstitutional to impose the death penalty on a child under the age of 18, the APA said the law

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Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt issues a stay of execution for Glossip

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt has issued a 60-day stay of execution for Richard Glossip. The stay is effective September 22, the day Glossip was scheduled to be executed. It is in effect until December 8, 2022. “This stay is granted to allow time for the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to address a pending legal proceeding,” the order states.  Stitt is referring to a recent request by 61 Oklahoma lawmakers

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