While we’re on the subject…
July 24, 2023
“If you take away the arguments about cost, deterrence, and closure, what’s left other than a call for vengeance?” the Idaho Statesman asks in an
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“If you take away the arguments about cost, deterrence, and closure, what’s left other than a call for vengeance?” the Idaho Statesman asks in an
The State of Alabama killed James Barber last Friday, its first execution since Gov. Kay Ivey called for a temporary halt in November after the
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to vacate Richard Glossip’s 1997 capital murder conviction and return his case to a
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Rodney Reed’s petition for a new trial in the murder conviction that sent him to death row 25
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
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
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
“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
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
“What has happened to Mr. Hastings is a terrible injustice,” Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón said at a news conference announcing Maurice Hastings’ release late last month. “The justice system is not perfect, and when we learn of new evidence which causes us to lose confidence in a conviction, it is our obligation to act swiftly.” Hastings, now 69, was sentenced to life without parole in 1988 for the
In Texas, Tracy Beatty was killed early last month despite valid questions about whether his crime qualified for the death penalty. Beatty was found guilty of strangling his mother, Carolyn Click, in 2003 after a violent argument. But, as the Texas Tribune reports, Texas law requires that to charge a defendant with capital murder, special circumstances must be involved, such as killing a police officer or committing the murder during
For the second time in two months, Alabama botched an execution. Corrections officials ended their attempt to kill Kenneth Smith on November 17 after trying and failing for over an hour to find a usable vein for its lethal drugs. On Friday, a judge granted Smith’s lawyers’ motion to preserve evidence of his injuries from the botched procedure. They asked that “documentation of his injuries and notes, records, photographs, videos,
The problems with Alabama’s July execution of Joe Nathan James, Jr., during which it took the execution team three hours to kill him because of their difficulty finding a usable vein for the lethal injection drugs, make it clear that the men and women in the execution chamber need, and should be guaranteed the right to have their lawyers present, with access to a phone, during the execution process. So,
Andre Thomas The Court, in a 6-3 decision, rejected an appeal by Andre Thomas’s lawyers to review his case because it was tainted by racism. Thomas was sentenced to death in 2005 for killing his wife, their son, and her daughter in Sherman, Texas, in 2004. In his petition for writ of certiorari, his lawyers argued that three members of his all-white jury (Thomas is Black) had stated their opposition
The U.S. Supreme Court shot down an attempt by three California district attorneys to intervene in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the state’s lethal injection protocol earlier this month. San Bernardino, Riverside, and San Mateo County DAs Jason Anderson, Michael A. Hestrin, and Stephen M. Wagstaffe had petitioned the Court for a writ of certiorari in May. The lawsuit was filed in 2018 by five men on California’s death
Oklahoma killed Benjamin Cole last week, a severely mentally ill man who did not understand the legal proceedings surrounding his execution. The 57-year-old Cole was convicted of killing his nine-month-old daughter, Brianna, in 2002. “Ben lacked a rational understanding of why Oklahoma took his life today,” attorney Tom Hird said in a statement issued after Cole was killed. “Benjamin Cole was a person with serious mental illness whose schizophrenia and
When the jury in the death penalty trial of Nikolas Cruz, who pled guilty to killing 17 students and teachers and wounding 17 others at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, returned a verdict of life without parole earlier this month, the shock waves reverberated across the country. “Families shocked as jury spares life of Parkland killer,” the New York Times headline read. “Families of Parkland massacre victims
In California, a new report from the U.S. Department of Justice describes how the Orange County District Attorney’s Office and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department “systematically violated criminal defendants’ Sixth Amendment right to counsel and Fourteenth Amendment right to due process of law” in its longtime use of a secret jailhouse informant program. “The failure to protect these basic constitutional guarantees not only deprives individual defendants of their rights, it
