Florida continued its execution spree on Tuesday. The state executed Kayle Bates (Maud Dib Al Sharif Qu’un), a 67-year-old Black Muslim veteran convicted of kidnapping,
The State of Tennessee executed Byron Black last month, a 69-year-old Black man who had a documented intellectual disability, end-stage kidney disease, congestive heart failure,
Ten death-sentenced individuals imprisoned on Arkansas’s death row filed a lawsuit earlier this month challenging a new state law that allows corrections officials to execute
Florida’s eight executions, combined with its plans to kill Edward Zakrzewski at the end of this month, and Kayle Bates in mid-August, means that the
“As an executive and investor, I find it unthinkable that we continue to pour public resources into such a fundamentally broken system. If any company
Criminal justice and civil rights advocate Ronald J. Tabak died last week, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, the law firm where, in 1985,
In Tennessee, 68-year-old Byron Black, who lawyers say has an intellectual disability, dementia, and brain damage, is scheduled to be executed on August 5, after
Earlier this month, Texas District Court Judge Austin Reeve Jackson granted Attorney General Ken Paxton’s request to schedule Robert Roberson’s execution for October 16, even
(Update: On Tuesday, a few hours after this article was posted, Gov. DeSantis signed another death warrant, this one for 59-year-old Curtis Windom, who is scheduled
Please join Sister Helen Prejean, DPF President Mike Farrell, and TCADP in urging Collin County DA Greg Willis, Gov. Greg Abbott, and the Texas Ct of Criminal Appeals not to kill Ivan Cantu this Wednesday, February 28. [Unfortunately, his execution was carried out.] Ivan was convicted of the 2001 killing of his cousin, James Mosqueda, and Mosqueda’s fiancée, Amy Kitchen. But there is so much wrong with the case against
Robert Badinter, the former French Minister of Justice and the man who, in 1981, in one of his first acts as justice minister in the government of President François Mitterrand, wrote the law that abolished capital punishment in France, died early on Friday. He was 95. At a commemoration ceremony on the 40th anniversary of that historic achievement last September, with French President Macron at his side, Badinter declared, “I
In California’s Riverside County, two Black men challenging their separate death penalty prosecutions under the California Racial Justice Act (AB 256) were granted evidentiary hearings by a California Court of Appeals late last month. Russell Austin and Michael Mosby argued that “the death penalty in Riverside County is tainted with racial inequality — and offered statistical studies, along with other evidence, reaching that conclusion,” the ACLU Southern California announced in
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond and Department of Corrections Executive Director Steven Harpe are asking the state Court of Criminal Appeals to set the execution dates for the next six people it plans to kill at 90-day intervals. The state had scheduled 12 executions for 2024. “The present pace of executions, every 60 days, is too onerous and not sustainable,” DOC ED Harpe stated in the joint motion https://www.oag.ok.gov/sites/g/files/gmc766/f/documents/2024/in_re_execution_dates_1.30.24.pdf to
In her essay in Politico Magazine, USF School of Law Professor Lara Bazelon says the downward trend in death sentences that began after hitting a peak in the mid-1990s, “is beginning to reverse.” She notes that in 2021, there were 11 executions in the U.S. and one year later, in 2022, there were 18. In 2023, there were 24 people executed, the highest in five years. The reason for the
The American Bar Association (ABA) has sent a compelling letter to Governor Gavin Newsom concerning the case of death-row inmate Kevin Cooper. In this letter, the ABA expressed ongoing concerns about Cooper’s conviction and the transparency of the investigation process. The ABA highlighted that all law enforcement files were not disclosed during the investigation, urging the Governor to ensure full disclosure of relevant evidence. They emphasized the importance of due
U.S. District Judge R. Austin Huffaker rejected Kenneth Smith’s request for an injunction to stop Alabama from executing him with nitrogen gas late last month, making his execution, scheduled for January 25, more likely, although the constitutionality of using nitrogen gas in state killing could be raised in the U.S. Supreme Court. No other state has ever attempted to kill a person using nitrogen gas, although Oklahoma and Mississippi have
Florida prosecutor seeks death penalty in sex abuse case in a test of a new state law A Florida prosecutor announced late last month that he will seek the death penalty in a child sexual assault case. The indictment is a test of a new state law that allows a person convicted of the rape of a minor to be sentenced to death. In a statement on his website, State
“Texas remained an unfortunate outlier as just one of five states to carry out executions in 2023, leading the nation with eight people put to death this year,” the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty stated in its annual report, “Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2023: The Year in Review.” The report noted that the majority of the eight men killed by the state in 2023 had “significant intellectual