Voices: Edward Zwick
May 10, 2019
“Inchoate rage” is what compelled writer, director, producer Edward Zwick to co-produce and direct “Trial by Fire,” a feature film about the conviction and execution
“Inchoate rage” is what compelled writer, director, producer Edward Zwick to co-produce and direct “Trial by Fire,” a feature film about the conviction and execution
“Everyone has a breaking point. Anyone can be convinced to confess, to lie. And it’s not only that they can but they do it at
(Editor’s Note: The front page of this newsletter spells Joe Giarattano’s name incorrectly in the headline. We would correct it, but the computer program we use won’t
Tennessee’s nine-year break in executions ended in August when the state killed Billy Ray Irick by lethal injection. Last week, Edmund Zagorski was executed by
When Vicente Benavides walked out of San Quentin State Prison late last month, the first prisoner in recent memory to walk off California’s death row,
One year ago, we wrote about the case of Walter Ogrod, a man whom many believe was wrongfully convicted of killing four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn
The State of Michigan is the only state to have a death penalty ban in its constitution. That ban was enshrined 116 years after the
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
“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
“Amnesty International’s monitoring shows that in 2023 the lowest number of countries on record carried out the highest number of known executions in close to a decade,” AI states in its annual report, “The Use of the Death Penalty in 2023.” “These figures confirm trends of recent years that pointed to the ever-increasing isolation of retentionist countries.” Global use of the death penalty in 2023 increased 31% from 2022. The
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on Tuesday signed into law a bill that will allow a person to be sentenced to death for the rape of a child, the Center Square reports. Tennessee now joins Florida, which passed a similar bill in 2023, defying the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Kennedy v. Louisiana (2008). That decision, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy for the 5-4 majority, found that “a death sentence for
Donald Trump is promising that if he is reelected in November, he will execute every one of the 42 men on federal death row. The declaration is included in an 877-page document released by the Trump campaign, “Project 2025,” laying out all the monstrous plans the administration will unleash if he is not defeated. On page 554 is a paragraph promising to “do everything possible to obtain finality for the
“Of course, the death penalty is racist. And it would be wrong even if it weren’t,” the Los Angeles Times stated in an editorial earlier this week. The piece is in response to two significant developments that occurred last month, highlighting the racism inherent in capital punishment. The first was a writ petition filed by the Office of the State Public Defender, legal organizations, and civil rights groups at the
In this month’s Focus, we wrote about a writ petition a coalition of prominent civil rights and legal organizations filed at the CA Supreme Court earlier this month. The writ maintains that “Extensive empirical evidence demonstrates that California’s capital punishment scheme is administered in a racially discriminatory manner and violates the equal protection provisions of the state Constitution.” The petition asks the Court to declare California’s capital sentencing scheme invalid
At least seven young men, all of whom were sentenced to death for so-called crimes committed when they were between the ages of 14-17 and who are members of the Shi’a religious minority, are at imminent risk of execution in Saudi Arabia, the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights announced today. In April 2020, the government said that it was suspending all death sentences against individuals who were under the
One hundred-ninety-seven individuals sentenced to die have been exonerated in the U.S. since 1973. Melissa Lucio, on Texas death row since 2008 for a crime no reasonable person ever believed she committed, could and should be the 198th. Lucio, now 55, was arrested in 2007 for the murder of her two-year-old daughter, Mariah, despite forensic and eyewitness evidence that her daughter died from a head injury she suffered in a
CA Gov. Gavin Newsom grants 37 pardons; 18 commutations Late last month, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced he pardoned 37 individuals and commuted the sentences of 18 others because “clemency [is] an important part of the criminal justice system that can incentivize accountability and rehabilitation, increase public safety by removing counterproductive barriers to successful reentry, correct unjust results in the legal system, and address the health needs of incarcerated people
“In states where the death penalty does exist, it shouldn’t be cruel, it shouldn’t be unusual (and) it definitely shouldn’t be experimental, like nitrogen hypoxia is,” Alabama State Rep. Neil Rafferty stated when he introduced HB 248, which would prevent the state from executing any more people using nitrogen gas, the Alabama Reflector reports. In January, the state killed Kenneth Smith using nitrogen gas, the first time a state has
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