“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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
The California Supreme Court last week heard oral arguments from both sides on an appeal by a Los Angeles man who says his death sentence violated state laws because the jury did not agree unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt on the aggravating circumstances that justified his sentence. Don’te LaMont McDaniel and a co-defendant were convicted of killing a rival gang member and an eyewitness to the attack in Los Angeles
It was unanimous. “Eliminating the death penalty is a critical step towards creating a fair and equitable justice system for all in California, as the ultimate punishment is plagued by legal, racial, bureaucratic, financial, geographic, and moral problems that have proven intractable,” the California Committee on Revision of the Penal Code said in a report released last month. The recommendation reverberated through the political, criminal and social justice, and legal communities,
Declaring that, “In cases where the government seeks to impose the ultimate punishment of death, I need to be satisfied that all relevant evidence is carefully and fairly examined,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom late last month ordered an independent investigation of death row prisoner Kevin Cooper’s case as part of Cooper’s application for clemency. For Cooper, who has insisted on his innocence since his arrest in 1983, and whose high-profile
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Mary Kate DeLucco 415-243-0143 mary@deathpenalty.org — Sacramento (June 1, 2021) — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday ordered an independent investigation of death row prisoner Kevin Cooper’s case as part of Cooper’s application for clemency. “In cases where the government seeks to impose the ultimate punishment of death, I need to be satisfied that all relevant evidence is carefully and fairly examined,” Newsom said in his Executive
Last year we passed the Racial Justice Act & vowed to come back to make the bill retroactive. We must pass #RJA4All to #ConfrontRacism not only in the future, but for Black & Brown people languishing in jails & prisons right now. Justice delayed is justice denied. #AB256
We have a real chance to end the policy that enabled the former president to rush the killing of the most prisoners in the shortest amount of time in over a century. The bill has already been introduced by Rep. Ayanna Pressley in collaboration with Senator Dick Durbin, who has indicated he will introduce a companion bill in the Senate. Everyone who wants to abolish the death penalty is asked
Thank You To Our Sponsors! View Tribute Book Additional Clips: http://deathpenalty.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Death-Penalty-Focus-Huerta-Message.mp4http://deathpenalty.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/DPF-Barbara-Lee-greeting-edited.mp4
A Highschooler Against the Death Penalty: What Do I Know? As teenagers, or “children” under the age of 18, we are often disregarded and our voices suppressed because of our age. People like to use our age as an insult by saying “you’re just 16, what do you know?” like that’s supposed to strengthen their argument. I may be sixteen, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be educated. Age shouldn’t
Among Biden’s main executive orders, he will order that federal executions be halted. Read Here