Pervis Payne resentenced due to intellectual disability
December 6, 2021
Pervis Payne, who has been on Tennessee’s death row for 34 years, and has always maintained his innocence, will be resentenced to life in prison
Pervis Payne, who has been on Tennessee’s death row for 34 years, and has always maintained his innocence, will be resentenced to life in prison
Oklahoma executed Bigler Stouffer II on Thursday. He was 79, the second-oldest prisoner to be killed in the U.S. since the death penalty was reinstated
Right up to and including the commutation of his death sentence, the state of Oklahoma acted with deliberate malice and cruelty to Julius Jones. Yes,
When the California Committee on Revision of the Penal Code released a draft report in May, recommending that California abolish its death penalty, it highlighted
A year ago, wrongful convictions and the death penalty were not something that crossed my mind very often. As a Japanese major, I generally stay
“I want to share with you my absolute conviction that the death penalty must disappear from the entire world as it is a shame for
In Japan, death row prisoners wake up every day wondering if it will be their last. Execution dates are not set in Japan so the prisoners don’t know when they will be executed until right before they are hanged (the only method Japan uses).
In its analysis of the President Biden-appointed US Supreme Court Reform Commission’s draft recommendations, Balls and Strikes says the “commission gave the death penalty a
You are going to want to meet Mamie Lang Kirkland.
In his multi-part series, “We need to fix forensics. But how?” in the Washington Post, Radley Balko poses six questions to 14 experts who work in the areas of law, science, and forensics on how to fix the problems with the way forensics are used in criminal cases. “In covering these issues, I have found that there are lots of people willing to talk about the problems with forensics in
The “machinery of death” will shift into high gear in the next few months if the Department of Justice gets its way. On Monday, Attorney General William Barr announced that the Department of Justice will propose legislation to speed up death penalty trials for defendants accused of mass murder, or the killing of a law enforcement officer. “There will be a strict timetable for judicial proceedings that will allow the
Last month we reported on a case that may have enormous implications for the future of the death penalty in California. Death Penalty Focus has since submitted an amicus letter asking the California Supreme Court to take up the case. Below you will find an excerpt to our story about the case and the amicus letter itself. To download and read the letter right now, click here. —– —– —–
The mass shootings last weekend have caused unimaginable pain and suffering. Dozens of people are dead. Hundreds of family members and friends are grieving. Entire communities are traumatized. We offer our deepest sympathies to all who are grieving. President Trump has called for the death penalty in response to our country’s epidemic of mass shootings. But, as the statistics bear out, the death penalty will not curtail the scourge of
The acclaimed documentary is now on Amazon’s video streaming platform.
In 1986, my 70-year-old mother was asleep in her own bed when a teenaged neighbor broke into her home, raped her, and then beat her to near death and left her face down in a partially filled bathtub. It was a spectacularly brutal, banner headline crime, called by the District Attorney one of the most heinous in the history of the county. Even in light of what happened, I am
The Department of Justice announced today that it has scheduled five executions in December and January; the first federal executions since 2003. “The federal death penalty is a disgrace,” says Death Penalty Focus President Mike Farrell. “Riddled with the same problems we find in the state systems, it is racially biased, arbitrary, and applied not to the ‘worst of the worst,’ but to those who suffered traumatic childhoods, are mentally
Death penalty lawyer and DPF board member Robert M. Sanger believes that the moratorium Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in March created “a paradigm shift in the reality of California’s death penalty.” And the result is that “a California jury in a capital case cannot be expected to provide a fair and reasoned penalty-phase determination free from speculation.” The California Supreme Court thinks his argument might be worth considering. Sanger is
“In Los Angeles County, which is known as a bastion of progressivism, we have a system that is churning out more death sentences than any other county in the country. And by seeking death in a discriminatory way, they are perpetuating a racist system,” says the Justice Collaborative’s Senior Legal Counsel Summer Lacey. “Bryan Stevenson says the death penalty is modern day lynching, and you picture him talking about Alabama,
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