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In brief: July 2023

In California, Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin announced late last month that he will seek the death penalty for 43-year-old Jesse Ceazar Navarro, accused

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In brief: June 2023

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

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Alabama’s cruel and unusual attempt to kill Alan Miller

It appears that for the second time in two months, Alabama corrections officials botched an execution with their rushed attempt to kill Alan Miller last Thursday night. The U.S. Supreme Court had lifted an injunction staying Miller’s execution, giving the execution team about three hours to find a vein for their lethal injection drugs. They failed and were forced to abandon the killing because the death warrant was expiring. What

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Thank you, survey respondents!

Thanks so much for taking the time to complete our survey!  One thousand of you generously gave your time to help us refine our understanding of our membership, and we are very grateful. We received responses from people in 49 U.S. states, as well as from international supporters, and found that most respondents live in a state that has the death penalty. The majority of those who filled out the

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Join us for a conversation on “Torture and the Death Penalty”

Death Penalty Focus is marking the 20th World Day Against the Death Penalty with a webinar featuring a discussion on “Torture and the Death Penalty” with DPF President Mike Farrell and Professor Juan E. Méndez, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture. The discussion will air on Monday, October 10, 2022, at noon Pacific/3 p.m. Eastern and is free of charge. “The most frequent setting where torture and coercion take

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While we’re on the subject. . .

“His story, of a young boy victimized by addiction, poverty, violence, the foster care system and later the justice system, profoundly touched me then, and still does today,” Oprah Winfrey said in explaining why she chose Jarvis Jay Masters’ 1997 memoir, That Bird Has My Wings, as her latest selection for Oprah’s Book Club. Masters was first incarcerated at California’s San Quentin Prison in 1981 for armed robbery and was

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Alabama judge stays Alan Miller’s execution

Alabama may not kill Alan Eugene Miller on Thursday, AL.com reports. A federal judge issued a stay for Miller yesterday after Miller argued he had officially chosen nitrogen hypoxia as his method of execution, a protocol the Alabama Department of Corrections has admitted it is not ready to carry out. The 57-year-old Miller was scheduled to die at 6 p.m. Eastern on Thursday for shooting three men in August 1999

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Toforest Johnson asks Alabama Supreme Court for a new trial

Toforest Johnson, who has been on Alabama’s death row since 1998 for a crime he likely didn’t commit, is asking the state Supreme Court for a new trial. His lawyers asked the Court to review a lower court decision denying Johnson a new trial in a filing last Friday, the Washington Post reports.  Johnson was sentenced to death for killing Birmingham deputy sheriff William G. Hardy, who was working as

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California’s homicide rate and the conservative law-and-order myth

Conservatives love to blame high violent crime rates on progressives and their criminal justice reform efforts, especially in California, which is why the recently-released state report, “2021 Homicide in California,” from Attorney General Rob Bonta was such an eye-opening counter-narrative. According to the report, among counties with populations of 100,000 or more, the three with the highest murder rates were Kern, Merced, and Tulare. The three with the lowest rates

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Court finds South Carolina’s execution methods unconstitutional

South Carolina’s plan to execute men and women by electrocution or firing squad constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the state Constitution, a state judge ruled today, the State reports. The legislature  “ignored advances in scientific research and evolving standards of humanity and decency” when it voted last year to force people to be killed by electric chair or firing squad if they refuse to choose a method

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Albert Woodfox

Albert Woodfox, who spent 42 years in solitary confinement in Louisiana State Penitentiary (also known as Angola Prison) for a crime he didn’t commit before being freed in 2016, died earlier this month of complications from Covid. He was 75. Known as one of the “Angola Three,” Woodfox was arrested often as a teenager in New Orleans and later, in New York, where he joined the Black Panthers. In 1972,

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