Alabama executed Matthew Reeves last night despite the fact he had an intellectual disability. His execution was the second state killing yesterday after Oklahoma executed
In her Nevada Independent op-ed, “Nevada is preparing to execute a man with significant organic brain damage,” Dr. Natalie Novick Brown, a licensed clinical psychologist who evaluated
In any case charged from this day forward, LADA will not seek the death penalty. In any case currently charged with special circumstances where the
Gov. Gavin Newsom filed a brief in support of the appeal of Don’te McDaniel, a man on death row convicted of murder. Newsom argued in
2020 demonstrates the random callous nature of the death penalty. Until July 7,2020, for 17 years, the federal government did not execute a single federal
Former San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón, a progressive prosecutor, has officially beat incumbent Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey. This is a significant
Source: The Atlantic “Strapped to a gurney, two body lengths from where I sat behind thick glass and a curtain, Ricky Ray Rector groaned each
“Justice Thurgood Marshall was correct in 1972 when he predicted that if people were better informed about the death penalty, they would reject it. That
In his book, book, Six Amendments, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens called for revising six of the amendments to the Constitution, including the
A former victim of James Coddington is asking Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt for mercy for Coddington, who is scheduled to be executed next Thursday. KWGS Public Radio Tulsa reports that Trisha Allen was a gas station cashier 25 years ago when Coddington accosted her with a knife. Coddington robbed the gas station and left without hurting Allen. He went on to kill Albert Hale, a friend who had refused to
A number of people on California’s death row could be resentenced in the wake of a state Supreme Court ruling earlier this month. The unanimous decision reversed an appeals court ruling and found that a person who was not the shooter but was sentenced to death or life without parole (LWOP) can, under SB 1437, petition for resentencing. SB 1437, adopted by the legislature in 2018, narrowed the law of
James Coddington, a 50-year-old man who turned his life around in prison over the last 25 years, was executed by Oklahoma last Wednesday, two weeks after the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-2 to recommend his death sentence be commuted to life without parole. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt denied Coddington’s request for clemency despite the parole board’s recommendation, a plea from one of Coddington’s victims, and an appeal by
Terry McCaffrey is on a mission. Chair of the East-West San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the California People of Faith and Amnesty International’s Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator for the South Bay and Western regions, he is working hard to abolish the death penalty in California. Once that’s done, and he believes it will happen soon, he’ll turn to the other death penalty states and get it abolished there. It’s
In Alabama, Joe Nathan James, Jr., was executed late last month in what a private autopsy indicates was a “long death.” The Atlantic’s Elizabeth Bruenig’s report provides a harrowing account of evidence of the execution team’s several botched attempts to insert catheters into James’s hands and arms, causing severe pain, in what the physician who conducted the autopsy said was “further evidence that the IV team was unqualified for the
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
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted a stay of execution to Ramiro Gonzales earlier this month, two days before he was scheduled to be killed. The CCA, which is the state’s supreme court, ordered the trial court to consider Gonzales’s claim that his death sentence was based on false testimony. That testimony was provided by Dr. Edward Gripon, an expert witness for the prosecution who declared at Gonzales’s murder
Oklahoma’s plan to kill 25 men between next month and December 2024 has been met with outrage and disbelief. Former Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry and former U.S. Magistrate Judge Andy Lester, co-chairs of the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission, which issued a 300-page report in 2017 detailing the myriad flaws in the state’s capital punishment system, weighed in with an editorial in the Oklahoman this week. They noted that the
In California, three death sentences were overturned by state and federal courts in the past few weeks, the Death Penalty Information Center reports. “Richard Clark, Michael Bramit, and Andrew Lancaster were granted relief on claims related to defense counsel’s inadequate performance or jury-related issues,” according to DPIC. Clark (sentenced in 1987 in Santa Clara) and Bramit (sentenced in 1997 in Riverside) were granted new penalty phase trials, and a Los
