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
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.
Reviewed by Robert M. Sanger This is California James Alexander was originally charged in San Diego with capital murder but was finally convicted of second
CBS News’ “48 Hours” reporter Erin Moriarty updates the Kevin Cooper case in an interview and article, noting that “It’s very difficult to believe that
Fifty years ago this month, on February 18, 1972, California abolished the death penalty. But it didn’t stay abolished. The lesson for us is that
Texas has executed at least five men who were very likely innocent, according to a recent report by the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death
California’s death row, the largest in the Western Hemisphere, will be dismantled. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last week that a two-year-old pilot program will be
In Alabama, Matthew Reeves was executed January 27, despite having an intellectual disability. Reeves was killed by lethal injection because he failed to choose a
In his editorial in Verdict, Austin Sarat says there is such significant “new progress in the effort to abolish America’s death penalty,” that it’s “not
Death Penalty Focus is marking the 20th World Day Against the Death Penalty with a webinar featuring a discussion on “Torture and the Death Penalty” with DPF President Mike Farrell and Professor Juan E. Méndez, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture. The discussion will air on Monday, October 10, 2022, at noon Pacific/3 p.m. Eastern and is free of charge. “The most frequent setting where torture and coercion take
“His story, of a young boy victimized by addiction, poverty, violence, the foster care system and later the justice system, profoundly touched me then, and still does today,” Oprah Winfrey said in explaining why she chose Jarvis Jay Masters’ 1997 memoir, That Bird Has My Wings, as her latest selection for Oprah’s Book Club. Masters was first incarcerated at California’s San Quentin Prison in 1981 for armed robbery and was
Alabama may not kill Alan Eugene Miller on Thursday, AL.com reports. A federal judge issued a stay for Miller yesterday after Miller argued he had officially chosen nitrogen hypoxia as his method of execution, a protocol the Alabama Department of Corrections has admitted it is not ready to carry out. The 57-year-old Miller was scheduled to die at 6 p.m. Eastern on Thursday for shooting three men in August 1999
Toforest Johnson, who has been on Alabama’s death row since 1998 for a crime he likely didn’t commit, is asking the state Supreme Court for a new trial. His lawyers asked the Court to review a lower court decision denying Johnson a new trial in a filing last Friday, the Washington Post reports. Johnson was sentenced to death for killing Birmingham deputy sheriff William G. Hardy, who was working as
Conservatives love to blame high violent crime rates on progressives and their criminal justice reform efforts, especially in California, which is why the recently-released state report, “2021 Homicide in California,” from Attorney General Rob Bonta was such an eye-opening counter-narrative. According to the report, among counties with populations of 100,000 or more, the three with the highest murder rates were Kern, Merced, and Tulare. The three with the lowest rates
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
