While we’re on the subject . . .
May 10, 2019
In her op-ed, “I will spend my life fighting against the death penalty and I’m proud to have Newsom with me,” in the Orange County Register,
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In her op-ed, “I will spend my life fighting against the death penalty and I’m proud to have Newsom with me,” in the Orange County Register,
“Inchoate rage” is what compelled writer, director, producer Edward Zwick to co-produce and direct “Trial by Fire,” a feature film about the conviction and execution
Norman Lear, the legendary writer and producer known for such sitcoms as “All in the Family,” “One Day at a Time,” and “The Jeffersons,” is
In “Why We Can’t Let Rural Prosecutors Fly Under the Radar” in Filter, Rory Fleming uses Monroe County (Rochester, NY) District Attorney Sandra Doorley, who he
Global executions fell by almost 31 percent last year, the lowest figure in at least a decade, according to Amnesty International’s annual report, also released
“Gorsuch just handed down the most bloodthirsty and cruel death penalty opinion of the modern era” read the headline in ThinkProgress. “Unusual Cruelty at the
When Gavin Newsom assumed office just four months ago, he promised Californians his administration would “be bold” and would “aim high.” With his decision to
On March 13, California Governor Gavin Newsom imposed a moratorium on the death penalty, ensuring there would be no executions while he is in office.
“Governor Gavin Newsom’s heroic act of declaring a moratorium on executions in our state has inspired us all,” DPF President Mike Farrell said in his
California has the largest female death row in the U.S., with 23 condemned women imprisoned at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla. Four women have been executed in the state since 1893, with the last, Elizabeth Duncan, killed in 1962.* Texas is second with six women on its death row. There are 54 condemned women in the U.S. as of October 2017, about two percent of the total death
In the words of Bob Dylan, “It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.” The confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, replacing Anthony Kennedy, is not a setback for those who hoped the Court would in the near future finally rule that the death penalty is a barbaric punishment that has no place in a civilized society, it’s a death knell. Describing Kavanaugh as a “doctrinaire law-and-order
“The eighth amendment isn’t just a window. It’s a mirror. And what the Court has said is that our norms, our values are implicated when we do things to really fragile, really vulnerable people. And what we’ve argued is that dementia in this case renders Mr. Madison frail, bewildered, vulnerable in a way that cannot be reconciled with executing him,” Equal Justice Initiative attorney Bryan Stevenson told the U.S. Supreme
(This is a developing story. We will continue to update it as events unfold.) Yesterday, just a few hours before Edmund Zagorski was scheduled to be executed, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam granted him a 10-day reprieve. It was just one of many significant developments in a week full of legal rulings and decisions. In fact, Haslam’s reprieve was in response to a federal district judge’s earlier order barring the state from executing
Although court documents state that a member of the Oklahoma jury that sentenced Julius Jones to death for the July 1999 fatal shooting of 45-year-old Paul Howell said in front of another juror that “They should just take that [n-word] out and shoot him behind the jail,” and a witness reportedly informed the judge of the comment, but the judge did not take any action, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed
In his column, “Justice Delayed, With a Life on the Line,” in last Sunday’s New York Times, Nicholas Kristof again writes about the case of Kevin Cooper, who has been on California’s death row for 33 years for a quadruple murder he didn’t commit. Clearly frustrated, Kristof again asserts that Gov. Jerry Brown is at fault for not giving the go-ahead for advanced DNA testing on the evidence in Cooper’s case,
In North Carolina, the Center for Death Penalty Litigation released a report, “Unequal Justice: How Obsolete Laws and Unfair Trials Created North Carolina’s Outsized Death Row,” that found that approximately three quarters of the men and women on the state’s death row were convicted under obsolete laws before numerous reforms were enacted to ensure fairness and prevent wrongful convictions. North Carolina has the sixth largest death row in the nation, with
Yesterday, the Washington supreme court acknowledged that the state’s death penalty scheme is imposed in an arbitrary and racially biased manner and struck it down. The law lacks “fundamental fairness” the court said. African Americans make up 13 percent of the population, but they make up 42 percent of Washington’s death row — black defendants in Washington are four and a half times more likely than white defendants to receive a sentence of death,
Julius Jones was arrested in 1999 and sent to Oklahoma’s death row three years later for a carjacking murder it’s likely he didn’t commit. Now, for the first time in 19 years, there is reason to hope that justice will finally be done in his case. The U.S. Supreme Court said last week that it will review a petition filed last November by Jones’ lawyers. The petition is asking the
