Albert Woodfox
August 29, 2022
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
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
The American Psychological Association called on the courts, Congress, and state legislatures to ban the death penalty for people younger than 21, “based on scientific
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt has issued a 60-day stay of execution for Richard Glossip. The stay is effective September 22, the day Glossip was scheduled
A former victim of James Coddington is asking Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt for mercy for Coddington, who is scheduled to be executed next Thursday. KWGS
A number of people on California’s death row could be resentenced in the wake of a state Supreme Court ruling earlier this month. The unanimous
James Coddington, a 50-year-old man who turned his life around in prison over the last 25 years, was executed by Oklahoma last Wednesday, two weeks
Terry McCaffrey is on a mission. Chair of the East-West San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the California People of Faith and Amnesty International’s Death
In Alabama, Joe Nathan James, Jr., was executed late last month in what a private autopsy indicates was a “long death.” The Atlantic’s Elizabeth Bruenig’s
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt has issued a 60-day stay of execution for Richard Glossip. The stay is effective September 22, the day Glossip was scheduled
The Oregon Supreme Court issued a ruling last week which will likely overturn the death sentences of all 23 prisoners on death row. In State v. Bartol, the court struck down the death sentence of David Bartol, a gang member who killed another prisoner, Gavin Siscel, in 2013. Bartol’s lawyers argued that his death sentence was invalid because he was sentenced before the state legislature changed its death penalty law in 2019,
“The circumstances that lead women to commit violent crimes are often complicated by a history of sexual and/or physical trauma….We know, for instance, that almost all who commit violence have first experienced it.” This is according to a new report, In the Extreme: Women Serving Life Without Parole and Death Sentences in the United States, which also found that “Women serving life sentences have high levels of psychiatric disorders, histories of physical and
In her Nevada Independent op-ed, “Nevada is preparing to execute a man with significant organic brain damage,” Dr. Natalie Novick Brown, a licensed clinical psychologist who evaluated Nevada death row prisoner Zane Floyd, states that Floyd was born with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). The disorder is “similar in severity to intellectual disability … which has broad implications regarding his behavior, impulse control, and decision-making.” She points out that Floyd is “categorically
In California, the Los Angeles Daily News reports that Stanley Bernard Davis, sentenced to death in 1989 for the murder of Los Angeles college students Michelle Ann Boyd and Brian Harris in 1985, was resentenced last week to life without parole. Los Angeles prosecutors stipulated that Davis’s claim of intellectual disability was legitimate, making him ineligible for the death penalty. Also, in California, the Supreme Court reversed the conviction of death row prisoner Edward Wycoff.
Death Penalty Focus lost a dear friend and one of its most loyal supporters last week. Actor, activist, and all-around good guy, Ed Asner, died late last month at his home in Los Angeles. He was 91.
Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor has tentatively scheduled executions for seven men in five months, starting in October and continuing into February. If carried out, they will be the first executions in the state since 2015.
Two bills that would go a long way toward reforming California’s seriously flawed criminal justice systems are on hold until January.
When the California Supreme Court, late last month, upheld a state law that does not require a unanimous jury vote when sentencing a defendant to death, it not only disappointed many criminal justice advocates it surprised them as well.
“We are disappointed the Court didn’t take this step to address one of the many serious flaws in California’s capital punishment system,” Death Penalty Focus Board Chair Sarah Sanger stated. “The Court could have taken a big step toward confronting a deeply biased death penalty system.”
Read DPF’s statement here regarding the disappointing decision announced by the CA Supreme Court today.
Death Penalty Focus
500 Capitol Mall
Suite 2350
Sacramento, CA 95814
Tel: 415-243-0143
information@deathpenalty.org
Federal Tax ID# 95-4153420
DPF is a 501C3 non-profit organization
In Special Consultative Status with the UN Economic and Social Council since 2017
