Texas state Rep. Jeff Leach, who led a bipartisan effort in the legislature to commute Melissa Lucio’s death sentence last month, told the host of
Frank Atwood, imprisoned on death row since 1987 for the killing of an eight-year-old girl, is scheduled to be executed on June 8 in Arizona’s
A little over a week after Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced he was staying five state killings planned for this year, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine
Closing the Slaughterhouse: The Inside Story of Death Penalty Abolition in Virginia is a comprehensive account of the remarkable effort that resulted in the abolition of
There was a “worrying rise in executions and death sentences” last year, Amnesty International announced in its annual report this week. In 2021, at least
A little over a week after Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced he was staying five state killings planned for this year, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine
Stating that, “The death penalty is an extremely serious matter, and I expect the Tennessee Department of Correction to leave no question that procedures are
Death Penalty Focus is hiring a new Executive Director. We’re looking for a dynamic and thoughtful person to support our mission to end California’s death
Two days before Lucio was scheduled to be executed, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (the equivalent of a state supreme court) issued a stay.
South Carolina’s plan to execute men and women by electrocution or firing squad constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the state Constitution, a state judge ruled today, the State reports. The legislature “ignored advances in scientific research and evolving standards of humanity and decency” when it voted last year to force people to be killed by electric chair or firing squad if they refuse to choose a method
Albert Woodfox, who spent 42 years in solitary confinement in Louisiana State Penitentiary (also known as Angola Prison) for a crime he didn’t commit before being freed in 2016, died earlier this month of complications from Covid. He was 75. Known as one of the “Angola Three,” Woodfox was arrested often as a teenager in New Orleans and later, in New York, where he joined the Black Panthers. In 1972,
The American Psychological Association called on the courts, Congress, and state legislatures to ban the death penalty for people younger than 21, “based on scientific research indicating that adolescent brains continue to develop well beyond age 18.” While the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roper v. Simmons (2005) that it was unconstitutional to impose the death penalty on a child under the age of 18, the APA said the law
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt has issued a 60-day stay of execution for Richard Glossip. The stay is effective September 22, the day Glossip was scheduled to be executed. It is in effect until December 8, 2022. “This stay is granted to allow time for the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to address a pending legal proceeding,” the order states. Stitt is referring to a recent request by 61 Oklahoma lawmakers
A former victim of James Coddington is asking Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt for mercy for Coddington, who is scheduled to be executed next Thursday. KWGS Public Radio Tulsa reports that Trisha Allen was a gas station cashier 25 years ago when Coddington accosted her with a knife. Coddington robbed the gas station and left without hurting Allen. He went on to kill Albert Hale, a friend who had refused to
A number of people on California’s death row could be resentenced in the wake of a state Supreme Court ruling earlier this month. The unanimous decision reversed an appeals court ruling and found that a person who was not the shooter but was sentenced to death or life without parole (LWOP) can, under SB 1437, petition for resentencing. SB 1437, adopted by the legislature in 2018, narrowed the law of
James Coddington, a 50-year-old man who turned his life around in prison over the last 25 years, was executed by Oklahoma last Wednesday, two weeks after the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-2 to recommend his death sentence be commuted to life without parole. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt denied Coddington’s request for clemency despite the parole board’s recommendation, a plea from one of Coddington’s victims, and an appeal by
Terry McCaffrey is on a mission. Chair of the East-West San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the California People of Faith and Amnesty International’s Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator for the South Bay and Western regions, he is working hard to abolish the death penalty in California. Once that’s done, and he believes it will happen soon, he’ll turn to the other death penalty states and get it abolished there. It’s
In Alabama, Joe Nathan James, Jr., was executed late last month in what a private autopsy indicates was a “long death.” The Atlantic’s Elizabeth Bruenig’s report provides a harrowing account of evidence of the execution team’s several botched attempts to insert catheters into James’s hands and arms, causing severe pain, in what the physician who conducted the autopsy said was “further evidence that the IV team was unqualified for the
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