Biden will halt federal executions, other actions on first day in office
January 19, 2021
Among Biden’s main executive orders, he will order that federal executions be halted. Read Here
Among Biden’s main executive orders, he will order that federal executions be halted. Read Here
President Joseph Biden is the first occupant of the Oval Office in American history to openly and publicly oppose the death penalty and advocate its
A House bill seeking abolish the death penalty in Virginia was introduced by lawmakers in the General Assembly. Backed by Governor Northam, the bill was
Justice Sotomayor offered a fierce dissent before the Trump Administration carried out its 13th Federal Execution since July. Read Here
Early Saturday the Trump administration executed Dusting Higgs. Mr. Higgs was convicted and condemned for killing three women in 1996. With a sworn affidavit by
“We need to do everything in our power to root out white supremacy in all its forms, and that includes ending the death penalty for
This week, Donald Trump sanctioned the execution of the only woman on federal death row: Lisa Montgomery. She was the 11th prisoner to be killed
Trump’s increase in federal executions exposes the racism, classism, inability to deter crime, and high cost of capital punishment. Read Here
Lisa Montgomery’s first experiences of sexual abuse occurred indirectly when she was three years old. She would lie in bed at night beside her beloved
Scott Turow notes that “Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner seems to be one of the few people in Illinois who misses the death penalty” in an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune. Rauner recently proposed reinstating the death penalty for mass killers and those who kill law enforcement officials. Among the many reasons it would be a mistake to bring it back, Turow says, is that the plan to apply it in
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