Washington State abolishes its death penalty
April 27, 2023
“It’s official. The death penalty is no longer in state law,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee tweeted last week after signing SB 5087. In a follow-up
“It’s official. The death penalty is no longer in state law,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee tweeted last week after signing SB 5087. In a follow-up
In his guest essay, “San Quentin Could Be the Future of Prisons in America,” in the New York Times, Bill Keller writes that “there are
The State of Florida killed Louis Gaskin on Wednesday. The state has now killed more than 100 people since the death penalty was reinstated in
“After thorough and serious deliberation, I have concluded that I cannot stand behind the murder conviction and death sentence of Richard Glossip,” Oklahoma Attorney General
For the third time since 2019, the Texas House of Representatives passed a bill barring the death penalty for people with severe mental illness. The
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has filed a motion with the state Court of Criminal Appeals to postpone Richard Glossip’s May 18 execution to August
(Update: Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs and the Arizona Supreme Court ended a standoff over the execution of Aaron Gunches on Wednesday, after this story was
“It is not for nothing that some critics refer to it as the ‘criminal legal system.’ The word ‘justice’ must be earned, and too often,
In Texas, corrections officials executed two men this month, Gary Green and Arthur Brown, Jr. Texas has killed five men this year. With last week’s
Two men, Barry Jones in Arizona and Lamont Hunter in Ohio, walked off death row the same day earlier this month, each wrongly convicted of first-degree murder of a child in their care. Barry Jones, sentenced to death in Arizona in 1995 for the murder of his girlfriend’s four-year-old daughter, Rachel, was released June 15 after Pima County Attorney Laura Conover issued a statement admitting that “medical re-examination of the
“Black-led organizations are working to stop the spread of legislation reinstating the death penalty” in “a response to a resurgence of legislation in states controlled by Republicans that seek to step up the use” of capital punishment, The Hill reported. The paper cites states including Tennessee, Florida, which would make it easier to sentence defendants to death, and New Jersey and Illinois, that are considering reinstating the death penalty, as
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact: Mary Kate DeLucco415-243-0143mary@deathpenalty.org– Sacramento, CA – Jun 21, 2023 – Rebuttal to Special Counsel’s Report on Kevin Cooper Case Submitted to Governor Newsom Attorneys representing Kevin Cooper have recently submitted a detailed rebuttal to the Special Counsel’s report concerning Mr. Cooper’s capital murder conviction. This development follows the January 13, 2023, report by the Special Counsel, which was a response to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s May 2021
Three months ago, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards told an audience at Loyola University that he supported abolishing the state’s death penalty because it’s “so final. When you make a mistake, you can’t get it back. And we know that mistakes have been made in sentencing people to death,” according to nola.com. Now, 51 of the 57 people on Louisiana’s death row are asking Bel Edwards, whose term is up
“I am holding tightly to my faith. It’s all I have left to take with me. I am sorry it had to come to this in this way. I wish I could have made things right while I was still here,” Michael Tisius wrote in his last statement before the state of Missouri killed him earlier this month. Tisius was just 19 when he shot and killed two county jail
Florida’s Catholic bishops are urging Gov. Ron DeSantis to grant a stay of execution to Duane Owen, and commute his sentence to life without parole, Crux, an independent news service that covers the Vatican and the Catholic Church, reports. Owen, sentenced to death for two separate murders, Karen Slattery, and Georgianna Worden, in 1984, is scheduled to be killed June 15. “Taking Mr. Owen’s life will not restore the lives
“Tonight, by killing Darryl Barwick, we the People of the State of Florida also killed the belief that redemption matters. That remorse matters. That people, especially those who are sentenced to die as teenagers, are capable of change. This execution cements the short-sighted notion that people are irrevocably defined by the worst thing they have ever done,” Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty Executive Director Maria DeLiberato, wrote after
(This post was updated on June 1, 2023.) In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis withdrew a hold on the June 15 death warrant for Duane Owen, Flaglerlive.com reported. On May 22, DeSantis issued a temporary stay of execution and appointed three psychiatrists to assess Owen’s mental competence. According to Flaglerlive, DeSantis said the psychiatrists found that Owen ” has the mental capacity to understand the nature of the death penalty and
As originally written, California’s SB 94 would have allowed judges to review death and life-without-parole sentences for people imprisoned for at least 20 years. The Senate passed the bill last week with 22 votes, one vote more than needed, sending it to the Assembly, but not without significant amendments. It is now limited to those individuals serving a sentence of life without parole who have been imprisoned for 25 years