Voices: Maurice Possley
December 14, 2018
“Until I can be sure that everyone sentenced to death in Illinois is truly guilty, until I can be sure with moral certainty that no
Menu
“Until I can be sure that everyone sentenced to death in Illinois is truly guilty, until I can be sure with moral certainty that no
In her article, “This Is What Wrongful Conviction Does to a Family,” in Politico, Lara Bazelon looks at the arrest of two men for the 1982
In Texas, three men were executed in the space of four weeks: 43-year-old Alvin Braziel was executed on Tuesday for the 1993 murder of Douglas
Thanks so much to all of you who have signed our petition to California Gov. Jerry Brown asking him to remove as many people as
Representatives from Catholic and other organizations opposed to the death penalty delivered six thousand signatures to California Gov. Jerry Brown yesterday asking him to commute
There was much to celebrate after this week’s election, especially the strides made in criminal justice reform. In Louisiana, Amendment 2 passed easily, which means
He spent 14 years, 10 of them on death row, and on Monday, Florida prosecutors announced they would not proceed with a retrial for Clemente
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in the case of 50-year-old Russell Bucklew, a Missouri death row prisoner who came within a few
In Mississippi, a man who has been on death row for over 20 years, after being tried six times for a quadruple murder in 1996,
Robert Lewis, Jr. is off California’s death row after 34 years. Yesterday, the California Supreme Court overturned Lewis’s death sentence, finding “substantial evidence” that he is intellectually disabled. The unanimous decision means the 65-year-old Lewis’s death sentence will be reduced to life without the possiblity of parole. Attorney Robert Sanger, who is a Death Penalty Focus board member, has been working on Lewis’s case since 1994. He said the court’s
“In 34 years at The New York Times, I’ve never come across a case in America as outrageous as Kevin Cooper’s.” That’s what NY Times reporter Nicholas Kristof wrote in his column today about Kevin Cooper and the stunning injustice of his case. We’ve written a lot about the travesty of Cooper’s case – how he was sent to San Quentin’s death row 23 years ago for a crime he
When Vicente Benavides walked out of San Quentin State Prison late last month, the first prisoner in recent memory to walk off California’s death row, there was a crowd of family, friends, and supporters waiting to greet him. Among them, two women who had been envisioning this day for almost 18 years — his lawyer, Cristina Bordé, and his investigator, Mara Tobis, both of whom were assigned his case when
What is a district attorney? The California primary elections will take place on June 5. There’s a lot at stake, in state and around the country. Not only will state and federal representatives be on the ballot, Californians will need to whittle down the candidate pools for attorney general and governor, two significant offices in administration of the death penalty system. On the local level, there are many important elections
The U.S. Supreme Court recently decided that Walter Leroy Moody wasn’t too old to be executed, but Russell Bucklew may be too sick. Moody was executed last month, April 19, in Alabama. He was 83 years old, the oldest prisoner executed in the United States since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. In 1991, Moody was convicted in federal court, and sentenced to seven concurrent life sentences and 400 years,
Late last month, the New Hampshire House and Senate voted to repeal the state’s death penalty and replace it with a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. It is the first time a Republican-controlled legislature has passed a repeal bill in that state. “Leadership came from the Republicans,” State Rep. Renny Cushing told DPF. “It’s thanks to a coalition of lawmakers who, for a variety of reasons, came
In Massachusetts, some Republicans are calling for reinstatement of the death penalty for the murder of law enforcement officials in the wake of the killing of a Yarmouth police officer last month. CBS Boston affiliate WBZ reports that the Republican Party tweeted its support for bringing back the death penalty for killing a police officer, and that an aide to Republican Gov. Charlie Baker has indicated he would support a
Living on Death Row examines the “psychology of waiting to die.” Edited by Hans Toch, James R. Acker and Vincent Martin Bonventre, the book presents analyses from psychologists, legal professionals, and criminologists, as well as first-person accounts from prison officials and death row prisoners, to “reveal the systemic, physical, and moral conditions that define and underlie death row, as well as the humanity of death row inmates who struggle to
The Alaska man accused of killing five people and wounding six in a shooting at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in January 2017 will be sentenced to life in prison without parole in a plea agreement that his lawyers and prosecutors reached yesterday. The agreement is especially surprising because the 28-year-old Esteban Santiago was facing federal charges because the shooting took place at an international airport. But the Miami Herald reports
