In California, Morris Solomon Jr., sentenced to death in September 1992 for the murders of six women in 1986-1987, died at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton earlier this month, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement. According to CDCR, the 80-year-old Solomon was found dead in his cell by medical staff on August 1. The San Joaquin County Coroner is investigating his death and will announce the cause when it’s determined, according to CDCR. There are 632 people under a death sentence in California.
In Utah, 48-year-old Taberon Dave Honie was executed by lethal injection last week. It was the state’s first execution in 14 years. Honie was convicted of the sexual assault and murder of Claudia Benn, his ex-girlfriend’s mother, in 1998, when he was 22, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. The paper stated that his last words were, “If it needs to be done for them to heal, let’s do this.”
In Florida, state officials plan to kill Loran Cole next Thursday despite legitimate concerns that the neglect, physical and sexual abuse, and trauma Cole experienced at the notorious Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, a reform school NPR once described as “a horror tale come to life,” changed the trajectory of his life and led to the commission of this crime. Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty is asking the state Board of Executive Clemency and Gov. Ron DeSantis to stay Cole’s execution and commute his sentence to life without parole. You can sign the petition here.
In Texas, Robert Roberson is scheduled to be executed on October 17, despite the fact he was wrongly convicted for the death of his two-year-old daughter, Nikki, under the now-debunked diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome in 2002. According to the Innocence Project, Roberson would be the first person in the U.S. to be executed under the now-discredited shaken baby syndrome theory. The NY Times published a powerful video about the case. The filmmakers accompany the police officer who arrested Roberson as he visits him on death row and who now says, “There is unassailable doubt that Robert did it.” As for Robert, he says, “I just hope and pray that we can make things right together.”
In Georgia, Norma Padgett, whose false rape accusations against four Black men, known as the Groveland Four, in 1949 resulted in the murders of two of the men, and the decades-long imprisonment of the other two, died last month, the Washington Post reported. She died, never having admitted her story of the assault wasn’t true. She was 92.