In brief: July 2019
July 11, 2019
New Mexico closed its death row late last month. The last two condemned prisoners, Timothy Allen and Robert Fry, had their sentences vacated by the
New Mexico closed its death row late last month. The last two condemned prisoners, Timothy Allen and Robert Fry, had their sentences vacated by the
In his chapter, “Capital Punishment,” in the American Bar Association’s The State of Criminal Justice 2019, Ronald J. Tabak reviews significant developments through the past
A report published today by the ACLU, “A Closer Look at Los Angeles County’s Troubling Death-Penalty Track Record,” finds that under LA District Attorney Jackie
Early last month, a small group of California district attorneys organized what it called a “Victims of Murder Justice Tour” in a few cities around
“I have no reason to believe government officials are deliberately hiding the way they pay for capital trials, but I do believe taxpayers in death
Twenty-one years after New Hampshire legislator Renny Cushing introduced his first bill to repeal the death penalty, he was finally successful last month when the
The machinery of death was in high gear in the South in May. Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida each killed a man, and Alabama executed two.
Stating that, “After the Florida Supreme Court’s decision on the death penalty, it became abundantly clear to me that the death penalty law in the
“I can’t think of a more exciting time to be part of the movement to abolish the death penalty,” new DPF Executive Director Nancy Haydt
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 General William Barr announced that the Department of Justice will propose legislation to speed up death penalty trials for defendants accused of mass murder, or the killing of a law enforcement officer. “There will be a strict timetable for judicial proceedings that will allow the
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 since submitted an amicus letter asking the California Supreme Court to take up the case. Below you will find an excerpt to our story about the case and the amicus letter itself. To download and read the letter right now, click here. —– —– —–
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 communities are traumatized. We offer our deepest sympathies to all who are grieving. President Trump has called for the death penalty in response to our country’s epidemic of mass shootings. But, as the statistics bear out, the death penalty will not curtail the scourge of
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 to near death and left her face down in a partially filled bathtub. It was a spectacularly brutal, banner headline crime, called by the District Attorney one of the most heinous in the history of the county. Even in light of what happened, I am
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 penalty is a disgrace,” says Death Penalty Focus President Mike Farrell. “Riddled with the same problems we find in the state systems, it is racially biased, arbitrary, and applied not to the ‘worst of the worst,’ but to those who suffered traumatic childhoods, are mentally
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 the reality of California’s death penalty.” And the result is that “a California jury in a capital case cannot be expected to provide a fair and reasoned penalty-phase determination free from speculation.” The California Supreme Court thinks his argument might be worth considering. Sanger is
“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 other county in the country. And by seeking death in a discriminatory way, they are perpetuating a racist system,” says the Justice Collaborative’s Senior Legal Counsel Summer Lacey. “Bryan Stevenson says the death penalty is modern day lynching, and you picture him talking about Alabama,
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 in Mississippi. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the seven-justice majority, noted “the extraordinary facts of this case.” Over the course of those six trials, he wrote, “The State’s relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals strongly suggests that the State wanted to