Death Penalty Focus has filed an amicus letter in support of a motion filed last month by death penalty lawyer and DPF board member Robert
“Anyone who claims to believe in the sanctity of life, truth, or justice cannot seriously defend the application of the death penalty in Pennsylvania,” Philadelphia
In Tennessee, the Tennessean reports Stephen West was executed by electric chair last night. He opted for electrocution over lethal injection, a choice available to
In his multi-part series, “We need to fix forensics. But how?” in the Washington Post, Radley Balko poses six questions to 14 experts who work
The “machinery of death” will shift into high gear in the next few months if the Department of Justice gets its way. On Monday, Attorney
Death penalty lawyer and DPF board member Robert M. Sanger believes that the moratorium Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in March created “a paradigm shift in
“In Los Angeles County, which is known as a bastion of progressivism, we have a system that is churning out more death sentences than any
Three weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 2010 conviction of Curtis Flowers, who has been tried six times for a 1996 quadruple murder
Two milestones were reached in June, starkly illustrating how broken the death penalty in the United States is. In North Carolina, prosecutors formally dismissed all
In her New York Times piece, “After Parkland, One Question Remains: What Is Justice?”, Audra D. S. Burch writes about Tom and Gena Hoyer, whose son was killed in a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in 2018. Fifteen-year-old Luke Hoyer was one of 17 students and teachers killed in the shooting, which also injured 17 others. A penalty trial is now underway for the
“It was so frustrating to see these horrible, untrue claims go unconfronted. I felt I could go after them and call them out for what they are — absurd.” Dr. Philip Hansten is explaining what inspired him to write his new book, Death Penalty Bullshit: Fifteen Absurd Claims of Death Penalty Supporters, and why he gave it what some might consider a controversial title. “It’s an accurate description. We have
Amnesty International called on President Biden to make good on his 2020 campaign promise and abolish the federal death penalty, and commute the sentences of the 44 men on federal death row. The 114-page report, “The Power of Example: Whither the Biden Death Penalty Promise?”, was released late last month to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Furman v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down the death
The Death Penalty Information Center marked the 50th anniversary of Furman v. Georgia by releasing a census of death sentences handed down from June 29, 1972 — the day the U.S. Supreme Court abolished the death penalty in Furman — through January 1, 2021, and the status of each sentence. “The data provide powerful evidence that the nation’s use of capital punishment continues to be arbitrary, discriminatory, and rife with
In our June Focus newsletter, we covered how Oklahoma’s attorney general has asked for execution dates for 25 men who have exhausted their appeals, but have valid innocence claims still unresolved. The most well-known among these men is Richard Glossip, who was sentenced to death in 1997, convicted of engineering the murder of Barry Van Treese, the owner of a motel where Glossip worked. The actual killer, Justin Sneed, serving
(Updated July 4, 2022) On Friday, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals scheduled execution dates for 25 men on death row, including individuals with claims of innocence, severe mental illness, and intellectual disability. The CCA set the dates in response to a request by Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor, who said he was acting “for the sake of the victims’ families, many of whom have waited for decades.” Despite troubling
Fifty years ago this week, the United States took a historic step toward a more fair, humane, less racist criminal justice system. On June 29, 1972, the Supreme Court ruled, in Furman v. Georgia, that the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The decision halted executions nationally, and more than 630 people sentenced to death in the U.S. were resentenced to life in prison.
The Oklahoma City law firm that conducted a pro bono independent investigation into the case of Richard Glossip, the second in line of the 25 men Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor is seeking to execute beginning in August, released its findings earlier this month. Its statement was unequivocal. “Considering the facts we uncovered, and that there exists no physical forensic evidence or credible corroborating testimony linking Glossip to the crime,
Three California district attorneys are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that denied their right to intervene in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the state’s lethal injection protocol. San Bernardino, Riverside, and San Mateo County DAs Jason Anderson, Michael A. Hestrin, and Stephen M. Wagstaffe petitioned the Court for a writ of certiorari late last month. In 2018, a federal district
