Tennessee Wants to Set Eight Executions before June 1
February 16, 2018
Tennessee, which hasn’t put anyone to death since 2009, is now hoping to execute eight people before June 1. That means eight executions in four
Tennessee, which hasn’t put anyone to death since 2009, is now hoping to execute eight people before June 1. That means eight executions in four
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
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
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
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
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
It’s not just amazing art that’s being produced on San Quentin’s death row, there is also some insightful, thought-provoking literature and poetry being written as
It’s not often we can share inspiring or uplifting information these days, but Nicola White, a London-based artist, has been working with prisoners at San
Death Penalty Focus is partnering with CharityBuzz to bring you FOUR new charity auctions–your chance to meet Patty Jenkins, Jeff Goldblum, Ben and Jerry, and
Why Victims’ Family Members Oppose the Death Penalty Watch the recap on-demand below Additional Resources Committee on Revision of the Penal Code – Death Penalty Report & Recommendations Facts about the people on California’s death row
How we Decrease Death Row & Abolish the Death Penalty: A Conversation with the California Committee on Revision of the Penal Code Watch the recap on-demand below Special thanks to chair of the Committee Michael Romano, staff attorney Rick Owen, and consultant to the Committee Natasha Minsker for discussing how they arrived at the decision and the strategies for reaching that goal. And thank you to our cosponsors, who share
Watch a recap of the first of our fall webinar series with “Women on Death Row,” moderated by Diann Rust-Tierney, Executive Director of the National Coalition To Abolish the Death Penalty, in conversation with two women who wrongfully spent time on death row.
“Ten years seem so long, but when I think about the shooting, about losing Laura, it seems both like it happened yesterday and a million years ago.” On Tuesday, Bethany Webb and other victims’ family members gathered at a memorial service in Seal Beach to remember the eight people killed 10 years ago in the worst mass shooting in Orange County history. Webb’s sister, Laura, was killed, and her mother
In his op-ed, “Oklahoma’s rush to execute harms culture of life,” in the Oklahoman, Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul S. Coakley writes that a court case pending in federal court on the legality of the state’s lethal injection protocol is an “opportunity” for Oklahoma to end its use of capital punishment. “There is little doubt that society has moved past the need for the death penalty,” he writes. It “is an immoral and
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law last week a bill that expands another criminal justice reform bill that became law two years ago. The San Jose Mercury News reports State Sen. Josh Becker’s (D-San Mateo/Santa Clara) bill, SB 775, will make it possible for as many as 2,000 people who were charged under the old felony murder law but were ineligible for resentencing under a reform bill passed in 2019, to
When the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-2 against clemency for John Grant last week, it cleared the way for the state to resume executions for the first time since 2015. The 60-year-old Grant is scheduled to be executed on October 28. He has been on death row since 2000 for the 1998 killing of Gay Carter, an Oklahoma corrections center employee. Carter had been serving time for armed
The Oregon Supreme Court issued a ruling last week which will likely overturn the death sentences of all 23 prisoners on death row. In State v. Bartol, the court struck down the death sentence of David Bartol, a gang member who killed another prisoner, Gavin Siscel, in 2013. Bartol’s lawyers argued that his death sentence was invalid because he was sentenced before the state legislature changed its death penalty law in 2019,
“The circumstances that lead women to commit violent crimes are often complicated by a history of sexual and/or physical trauma….We know, for instance, that almost all who commit violence have first experienced it.” This is according to a new report, In the Extreme: Women Serving Life Without Parole and Death Sentences in the United States, which also found that “Women serving life sentences have high levels of psychiatric disorders, histories of physical and