Racial Bias at Center of Two SCOTUS Decisions
March 10, 2017
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of two defendants recently in two very different cases, but with the same issue: racial bias.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of two defendants recently in two very different cases, but with the same issue: racial bias.
It passed by the slimmest of margins in November’s election, but Prop 66 has been stayed by the California Supreme Court since a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality was filed in the aftermath of the election. DPF board member and death penalty attorney Aundre Herron brings us up to date on the latest developments in the legal challenges facing this problematic initiative.
Across the country, states, legislatures, and the courts found themselves grappling with death penalty issues. We look at some of the more significant developments .
Four Spanish journalists were so affected by the experiences of death row exonerees they spent six years and much of their own money to make a documentary about a group of four men who call themselves the “Resurrection Club.”
Senator Bernie Sanders will accept the Abolition Awards and Judy Clarke and Speedy Rice will accept the Mario Cuomo Acts of Courage Award.
A while back I received a message from someone who was deeply angry about my opposition to the death penalty and let me know it in
Two civil rights heroes who never stopped fighting for the rights of the oppressed.
For whatever reason – cost, racial disparity, wrongful conviction – five states are now looking at repealing and replacing the death penalty.
For the past year, Florida’s legislators have tried to come up with a constitutional death penalty, but still haven’t succeeded.
The Guardian is reporting that lawyers for the seven men who are scheduled to be executed over the span of 11 days starting next Monday are in federal court today to argue that what they call “execution by assembly line,” puts their clients “at additional risk of harm because of the difficulty of carrying out eight executions with no room for assessment in between.” The attorneys are also arguing that
Alabama will no longer give judges the final say in whether a defendant is sentenced to death; that responsibility will lie with the jury.
The proposition “threatens to deal a mortal blow” to California’s courts, according to several legal organizations.
A report published today by Harvard’s Fair Punishment Project says the eight men Arkansas plans to execute, two a day, over a 10-day span next month all either have mental illness, are intellectually disabled, or had inadequate legal representation.
The U.S. Supreme Court has made two significant rulings in death penalty cases in just the past month. One centered on intellectual disability, the other racism. Both cases were out of Texas.
One of Rotary’s stated purposes is “to provide humanitarian services.” So why did Arkansas, which plans to execute eight inmates over ten days next month, ask its local Rotary Club to be citizen witnesses?
A newly-elected State Attorney in Orange-Osceola County announced today that she will not seek the death penalty in any case under her jurisdiction. The Orlando Sentinel reports that Aramis Ayala said death penalty prosecutions are “not in the best interest of the community or the best interest of justice.” Ayala’s announcement comes on the heels of new legislation just signed into law by the governor that requires a unanimous jury
San Quentin State Prison will no longer place death row inmates in solitary confinement indefinitely, thanks to a lawsuit filed by an Oakland attorney on behalf of six inmates.