While we’re on the subject . . .
August 16, 2019
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
Menu
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
Last month we reported on a case that may have enormous implications for the future of the death penalty in California. Death Penalty Focus has
The mass shootings last weekend have caused unimaginable pain and suffering. Dozens of people are dead. Hundreds of family members and friends are grieving. Entire
The acclaimed documentary is now on Amazon’s video streaming platform.
In 1986, my 70-year-old mother was asleep in her own bed when a teenaged neighbor broke into her home, raped her, and then beat her
The Department of Justice announced today that it has scheduled five executions in December and January; the first federal executions since 2003. “The federal death
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
An Interview with Michael Radelet, Ph.D. Michael Radelet is a sociologist at the University of Colorado-Boulder, where he served as chair of the Sociology Department from 2003 to 2009. Colorado abolished the death penalty on March 23, 2020. He was the chair of the Sociology Department at the University of Florida from 1996-2001. Dr. Radelet has been involved in death penalty scholarship and research for more than 40 years. He will
By Jessica S. Henry Walter “Arkie” Barton is scheduled to be executed by the State of Missouri on Tuesday, May 19th. Missouri may well be executing an innocent man. Read More
A lawyer for one of the five men the Trump Administration announced it plans to execute in December and January is challenging the legality of executing his client, Alfred Bourgeois, in two separate lawsuits. Reuters reports that Alexander Kursman got the go-ahead on Thursday to add his federal lawsuit challenging the DOJ’s lethal injection procedures to a larger lawsuit already filed by a group of other federal death row prisoners.
“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 is why the norms are changing, why capital punishment is in decline, and why eventual abolition is inevitable.” Four days after University of Colorado Sociology Professor Michael L. Radelet wrote those words in an essay for Medium, the Department of Justice announced that the government
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 Eighth Amendment, which he said should be modified to read, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments such as the death penalty inflicted.” The declaration was the culmination of years of increasing doubt about the use of
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 M. Sanger and Sarah Sanger in the California Supreme Court arguing that while the moratorium is in place in California, prosecutors should be prohibited from seeking the death penalty. As we reported in the July Focus, Sanger argues that the moratorium Gov. Gavin Newsom announced
“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 District Attorney Larry Krasner wrote in a brief to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last month. Krasner based his argument on how the death penalty has been applied in Philadelphia, “the jurisdiction that has sought and secured more death sentences than any other county in the
