
Santa Clara County DA seeks to resentence 15 people from death to life without parole
Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen announced earlier this month that he had filed a motion in Superior Court to recall the 15 death
Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen announced earlier this month that he had filed a motion in Superior Court to recall the 15 death
The death penalty “is state-sanctioned homicide, wholly ineffective, often botched, and a much more expensive punishment than life imprisonment. There is no ethical, scientifically supported,
In Georgia, corrections officials killed Willie James Pye last week, the state’s first execution since 2000. The 59-year-old Pye was sentenced to death after being
Texas killed Ivan Cantu late last month by lethal injection despite legitimate questions about his trial and conviction. Cantu’s original defense attorneys didn’t call any
Idaho corrections officials attempted to kill 73-year-old Thomas Creech late last month, but after an hour of repeated attempts to find a vein for its
Three major nitrogen gas manufacturers told the Guardian https://tinyurl.com/vjtyr732 earlier this month that they have taken steps to ensure that corrections departments in the U.S.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation issued a statement last week indicating that its final stages of closing San Quentin’s death row, which began
Fifty-four-year-old Daniel Gwynn was freed from Pennsylvania’s death row on February 29, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office announced. He served nearly 30 years for a
“It’s way too early to know whether states will increasingly look to nitrogen gas as an alternative to lethal injection, but Alabama’s recent experience suggests
In Oklahoma, Anthony Sanchez, on death row for 27 years, told CBS News in a telephone interview that he will reject his opportunity for a clemency hearing because of the unlikelihood it would be granted. CBS said Sanchez, now 44, pointed to the recent cases of Bigler Stouffer and James Coddington, both of whom received clemency recommendations from the Pardon and Parole Board only to have Gov. Kevin Stitt reject
Not even pleas from the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops were enough to persuade Gov. Ron DeSantis to commute Duane Owen’s death sentence and spare his life. Continuing his zeal for state killing, DeSantis gave the go-ahead for Owen to be executed on June 15, despite credible evidence that Owen was not mentally competent. “Tonight’s execution was the fourth in an execution spree fueled solely by political ambition. Tonight we
Two men, Barry Jones in Arizona and Lamont Hunter in Ohio, walked off death row the same day earlier this month, each wrongly convicted of first-degree murder of a child in their care. Barry Jones, sentenced to death in Arizona in 1995 for the murder of his girlfriend’s four-year-old daughter, Rachel, was released June 15 after Pima County Attorney Laura Conover issued a statement admitting that “medical re-examination of the
“Black-led organizations are working to stop the spread of legislation reinstating the death penalty” in “a response to a resurgence of legislation in states controlled by Republicans that seek to step up the use” of capital punishment, The Hill reported. The paper cites states including Tennessee, Florida, which would make it easier to sentence defendants to death, and New Jersey and Illinois, that are considering reinstating the death penalty, as
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact: Mary Kate DeLucco415-243-0143mary@deathpenalty.org– Sacramento, CA – Jun 21, 2023 – Rebuttal to Special Counsel’s Report on Kevin Cooper Case Submitted to Governor Newsom Attorneys representing Kevin Cooper have recently submitted a detailed rebuttal to the Special Counsel’s report concerning Mr. Cooper’s capital murder conviction. This development follows the January 13, 2023, report by the Special Counsel, which was a response to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s May 2021
Three months ago, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards told an audience at Loyola University that he supported abolishing the state’s death penalty because it’s “so final. When you make a mistake, you can’t get it back. And we know that mistakes have been made in sentencing people to death,” according to nola.com. Now, 51 of the 57 people on Louisiana’s death row are asking Bel Edwards, whose term is up
“I am holding tightly to my faith. It’s all I have left to take with me. I am sorry it had to come to this in this way. I wish I could have made things right while I was still here,” Michael Tisius wrote in his last statement before the state of Missouri killed him earlier this month. Tisius was just 19 when he shot and killed two county jail
Florida’s Catholic bishops are urging Gov. Ron DeSantis to grant a stay of execution to Duane Owen, and commute his sentence to life without parole, Crux, an independent news service that covers the Vatican and the Catholic Church, reports. Owen, sentenced to death for two separate murders, Karen Slattery, and Georgianna Worden, in 1984, is scheduled to be killed June 15. “Taking Mr. Owen’s life will not restore the lives
“Tonight, by killing Darryl Barwick, we the People of the State of Florida also killed the belief that redemption matters. That remorse matters. That people, especially those who are sentenced to die as teenagers, are capable of change. This execution cements the short-sighted notion that people are irrevocably defined by the worst thing they have ever done,” Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty Executive Director Maria DeLiberato, wrote after
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