Tickets are still available for our event next Sunday, September 23, in Los Angeles, when we will honor the Reverend James Lawson, a civil rights icon
“The Penalty,” the acclaimed documentary that goes behind the scenes of some of the biggest headlines in the recent history of America’s death penalty, will
The Washington Post this week reported on a study commissioned by the National Registry of Exonerations that found that since 1989, some 2,000 exonerees spent a combined
A doctor who reviewed statements from witnesses to last month’s execution of Billy Ray Irick in Tennessee stated in court filings that their accounts indicate
In New Hampshire, the Senate failed to override Gov. Chris Sununu’s veto of a death penalty repeal bill. The vote was 14-10, just short of the
In its editorial, “Gov. Brown Needs to Speed Up the Review Process for Death Row Inmate Kevin Cooper,” the LA TImes editorial board says that
Nebraska executed its first prisoner in 21 years today. The state killed Carey Dean Moore with a four-drug lethal injection cocktail that included fentanyl –
When Pope Francis declared last week that “the death penalty is inadmissible,” because it is “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,”
Three states inched closer to repealing their death penalty laws this year. Washington, Utah, and New Hampshire have been debating repeal bills in the most recent legislative session, but so far, two have come up short, and one is still pending. In New Hampshire on Monday, the Senate will debate a bill that would repeal the death penalty and replace it with a sentence of life without parole. SB 593
In Ohio, Alva Campbell was found dead in his cell at Chillicothe Correctional Institution last Saturday, four months after he was removed from the state’s execution chamber because the execution team couldn’t find a viable vein in which to inject its lethal drugs. Campbell was 69. The Columbus Dispatch reports that a spokesperson for the Ohio Dept. of Rehabilitation and Correction said “there was no evidence of foul play and
In his article, “When Can You Buy a Gun, Vote, or Be Sentenced to Death? Science Suggests U.S. Should Revise Legal Age Limits”, in The Conversation, Temple University psychology professor Laurence Steinberg explains how recent research on adolescent psychological and brain development “provides a compelling basis for changing our laws” to “increasing the minimum age for purchasing firearms, lowering the voting age, and raising the age of eligibility for capital
The State of Michigan is the only state to have a death penalty ban in its constitution. That ban was enshrined 116 years after the state became the first English-speaking government to abolish capital punishment for murder and lesser crimes in 1846. The person responsible for making it part of the constitution? Eugene Wanger, author of Fighting the Death Penalty: A Fifty-Year Journey of Argument and Persuasion. The result is
February 14, 2018 The Honorable Edmund G. Brown Governor State of California State Capitol, Suite 1173 Sacramento, CA 95814 Dear Governor Brown, We write to urge that you act affirmatively on Kevin Cooper’s pending clemency petition. We are law school deans representing the University of California Berkeley School of Law, Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, Santa Clara School of Law, and the University of San Francisco School
A federal judge told Alabama prison officials on Tuesday to preserve all evidence related to last week’s botched execution of Doyle Lee Hamm, CNN reported. Chief U.S. District Judge Karon Bowdre also ordered the corrections department to allow Hamm a full medical exam. The two-and-a-half hour ordeal last Thursday night was so botched it left Hamm “bruised, punctured, and limping from the attempted execution,” his attorney, Bernard Harcourt, wrote. What
Minutes before he was scheduled to be executed, Thomas Whitaker’s sentence was commuted to life without parole yesterday by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. In a statement, the governor cited several reasons for his decision. He noted that while Whitaker did not actually fire the gun that killed his mother and brother, and injured his father, he was sentenced to death while the actual gunman was not. He also cited the
Today, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted unanimously to recommend clemency for Thomas Whitaker. Whitaker is scheduled to be executed on Thursday for his role in arranging the murders of his mother and brother. His father also was shot in the ambush and survived; he has forgiven his son and has been asking for clemency for him. Reuters reports that, at a news conference after the board’s recommendation,
Washington’s state Senate voted to end the death penalty by a vote of 26-22 yesterday. The bill, which would repeal the death penalty and replace it with a sentence of life without parole, now goes to the House where legislators will have 22 days to vote on it. The Seattle Times reports that the Senate vote was bipartisan, “with a handful of Democrats crossing over to vote no, and five
