
Trump plans to execute all 42 people on federal death row if reelected
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
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
“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
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
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
An in-depth study of botched lethal injection executions in the U.S. conducted by Reprieve, the London-based NGO that has spent the last 25 years defending
In Oklahoma, Michael Dewayne Smith was executed earlier this month. He was convicted of murdering Janet Moore, a 40-year-old mother, and Sharath Pulluru, a 24-year-old
CDCR says it has moved approximately 222 of the individuals on San Quentin’s death row to 20 prisons throughout the state since February 26, when
As many as 35 death penalty cases in California’s Alameda County from the past 30 years are under review after a deputy district attorney discovered
This week, a coalition of prominent civil rights and legal organizations filed a writ petition at the CA Supreme Court stating that “Extensive empirical evidence
“It’s official. The death penalty is no longer in state law,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee tweeted last week after signing SB 5087. In a follow-up tweet, he laid out a timeline of the steps that led to abolition. It began in 2014 when Inslee issued a moratorium. Four years later, the state Supreme Court found state killing unconstitutional in State v. Gregory “because it is imposed in an arbitrary and
The bill Florida Gov. Ron De Santis signed into law last week will allow juries to recommend a death sentence with an 8-4 vote, the lowest threshold in the U.S. The legislation was spurred by the frustration felt by DeSantis and Republican lawmakers over the Parkland shooting verdict last year. In that case, Nikolas Cruz was convicted of killing 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018 and
Not even the unprecedented presence of Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who attended the hearing to advocate for clemency for Richard Glossip, was enough to convince the Oklahoma Pardon & Parole Board to grant Richard Glossip clemency on Wednesday. The vote was 2-2, with one abstention. The vote came after a three-hour long hearing, during which independent investigators, Glossip’s attorneys, and Drummond asked the board to grant clemency to Glossip,
SB 94, which would allow judges to review death penalty and life-without-parole sentences for people who have been imprisoned for at least 20 years, passed the Senate Public Safety Committee earlier this month. It now moves to the Appropriations Committee. The cost savings would be enormous. Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San Jose), the bill’s sponsor, said in a news release that it would save the state “hundreds of millions of dollars
In his guest essay, “San Quentin Could Be the Future of Prisons in America,” in the New York Times, Bill Keller writes that “there are many ways to measure the disaster that is America’s prison system,” but the fact that “haunts” him the most is that of the 600,000 people released from prisons every year, “about three-quarters of those released from state prisons nationwide are arrested again within five years.”
The State of Florida killed Louis Gaskin on Wednesday. The state has now killed more than 100 people since the death penalty was reinstated in 1972. Gaskin had severe mental illness. He was born to a teenage mother addicted to drugs. Because of her inability to care for him, he was moved between various family members, subject to abuse and neglect, and never lived in a stable environment. He dressed
“After thorough and serious deliberation, I have concluded that I cannot stand behind the murder conviction and death sentence of Richard Glossip,” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond announced Thursday. And he asked the state Court of Criminal Appeals “to vacate Glossip’s conviction and that the case be remanded to the district court.” Drummond filed the motion three days after he received a report from the special counsel he appointed in
For the third time since 2019, the Texas House of Representatives passed a bill barring the death penalty for people with severe mental illness. The bill now goes to the state senate, where two similar bills have been defeated. “I believe that the third time is the charm,” the Texas Tribune quoted the bill’s sponsor, Dallas Democratic Rep. Toni Rose, as saying on the House floor during debate. HB 727
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has filed a motion with the state Court of Criminal Appeals to postpone Richard Glossip’s May 18 execution to August 2024, the Oklahoman reports. This is the second time this year and the ninth time since Glossip was sentenced to death in 1997 for the murder of Barry Van Treese that his execution has been postponed. According to the Oklahoman, Drummond stated that the delay
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