New Philly DA delivers: cleans house
January 12, 2018
In what one local television station called “one of the most shocking and drastic shakeups of the district attorney’s office that anyone can recall,” newly-elected
In what one local television station called “one of the most shocking and drastic shakeups of the district attorney’s office that anyone can recall,” newly-elected
In California, the Los Angeles Times reports that Los Angeles County officials “mistakenly destroyed the evidence” that Scott Pinholster says would prove him innocent of
In its editorial, “Capital Punishment Deserves a Quick Death,” the New York Times refers to the recent attempted execution of Alva Campbell by the State
“I have hope. And because I have hope I have life.” For Kevin Cooper, who has been on San Quentin’s death row since 1985, it
“Unchained Artists,” an exhibition featuring some 50 pieces of artwork, poetry, and handcrafted art objects made by men and women incarcerated in the United States,
On Monday, January 15, an art exhibit featuring the work of prisoners around the country, including those on San Quentin’s death row, will open in
Public support for the death penalty dropped to its lowest level in 45 years in 2017, and the number of death sentences and executions is
Twenty years ago, Lucy Wilke was the prosecutor who sent Jeff Wood to Texas’ death row, even though he never killed anyone. Now, according to
The U.S. Supreme Court will decide soon whether to accept Hidalgo v. Arizona, which not only challenges Arizona’s death penalty statute, but the death penalty
In the March issue of Reason, reporter C.J. Ciaramella writes of how state officials have decided the “black hood of anonymity also covers the pharmacies that mix the deadly compounds used to kill prisoners.” Thanks to the “dogged work of investigative journalists,” Ciaramella says we know that the states “have turned to untraceable cash transactions, unregulated pharmacies, and overseas scammers to buy drugs to fill the veins of condemned inmates.
Nicola White is a London-based artist whose work is fashioned from the fragments of wood, glass, pottery, and other artifacts she finds on the banks of rivers in London. It’s called “mudlarking,” a term dating from the late 19th century to describe the poor who would scavenge the banks of the Thames for anything they could find that could be sold. White takes these objects she pulls from the mud
Bethany Webb, whose sister was killed and mother wounded in a mass shooting in Seal Beach, California in 2011, has not given up her crusade to end the death penalty in California. Webb, who has spent years representing DPF in seminars and panel discussions around the state, was part of a panel sponsored by the PEOPLE’S (People Enraged Over Prosecutors and Law Enforcement) Coalition in Orange County earlier this week.
Malcolm Alexander was convicted in New Orleans in 1980 of a rape in a case where the only evidence against him was the eyewitness identification by the victim who was attacked from behind, in a trial that took less than a day from beginning to verdict. His trial lawyer didn’t give an opening statement, closing argument, or present any witnesses in his defense. The fact that the victim identified Malcolm
On February 10, from 2-3:30 p.m., in San Francisco, we are co-sponsoring with the Justice Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America, San Francisco chapter, and the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee an event featuring a conversation with Kevin by phone, and his attorney live, about Kevin’s case in particular, and the injustice of the death penalty in general. Kevin is one of about 18 people on San Quentin’s death row
This Friday, January 26, is a day of meditation, prayer and action for San Quentin death row prisoner Jarvis Masters, who was wrongfully convicted of the murder of a prison guard, Sgt. Howell Burchfield, in 1985. Jarvis was in another part of the prison when the guard was killed. Another prisoner was convicted of the actual stabbing, and a third man of ordering the killing. Of the three accused, only
It’s easy to forget that California is a state with the death penalty on its books, and it’s not hard to see why. The state has not executed anyone in 12 years as January 2018. Nevertheless, California has sentenced nearly 1,000 people to death since the current system was adopted in 1978. There have been 13 executions in that time, and we currently house more people under sentences of death
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court sent the case of Keith Tharpe, who was sentenced to death in 1991 in Georgia, to a lower court to reconsider whether a juror who voted to put him to death did so because Tharpe is black. Tharpe’s appeal was based on an affidavit that his lawyers filed of an interview they conducted with Barney Gattie seven years after the trial. In the interview,
Doyle Lee Hamm has been on Alabama’s death row for 30 years. He is 60 years old, and is terminally ill with cranial and lymphatic cancer, which he has been battling for almost four years. Nevertheless, the Alabama Supreme Court signed Hamm’s death warrant last month, and he is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on February 22. “When judges schedule a lethal injection for a terminally ill prisoner