In terms of the criminal justice system, it can be argued that the most important locally elected official is the district attorney. So, in last
Next Tuesday, 34-year-old Christopher Young is scheduled to be executed in Texas for the 2004 murder of a 55-year-old convenience store owner. Exactly three months
Last Friday, Japan executed doomsday cult leader Shoko Asahara and his six followers, who had been sentenced to death for the sarin gas attack on
Scott Dozier In Alabama, AL.com reports that eight death row prisoners are dropping their lawsuit challenging the state’s three-drug lethal injection method because they have decided
In a New York Times op-ed, “What Happens When Prosecutors Break the Law?” defense attorney Nina Morrison focuses on the case of Suffolk County, New
An American pharmaceutical company filed a lawsuit blocking Nevada’s scheduled execution of Scott Dozier on Wednesday. New Jersey-based Alvogen said the state had “illegitimately acquired”
The son of the man whose life Christopher Young took 14 years ago has released a powerful video asking the State of Texas not to
In Louisiana in 1974, at the age of 16, Gary Tyler was sentenced to die for a crime he did not commit. He was arrested
I am furious! I am disgusted. I am an American and this perfidy is being carried out in my name. That the would-be ruler of
Bethany Webb, whose sister was killed and mother wounded in a mass shooting in Seal Beach, California in 2011, has not given up her crusade to end the death penalty in California. Webb, who has spent years representing DPF in seminars and panel discussions around the state, was part of a panel sponsored by the PEOPLE’S (People Enraged Over Prosecutors and Law Enforcement) Coalition in Orange County earlier this week.
Malcolm Alexander was convicted in New Orleans in 1980 of a rape in a case where the only evidence against him was the eyewitness identification by the victim who was attacked from behind, in a trial that took less than a day from beginning to verdict. His trial lawyer didn’t give an opening statement, closing argument, or present any witnesses in his defense. The fact that the victim identified Malcolm
On February 10, from 2-3:30 p.m., in San Francisco, we are co-sponsoring with the Justice Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America, San Francisco chapter, and the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee an event featuring a conversation with Kevin by phone, and his attorney live, about Kevin’s case in particular, and the injustice of the death penalty in general. Kevin is one of about 18 people on San Quentin’s death row
This Friday, January 26, is a day of meditation, prayer and action for San Quentin death row prisoner Jarvis Masters, who was wrongfully convicted of the murder of a prison guard, Sgt. Howell Burchfield, in 1985. Jarvis was in another part of the prison when the guard was killed. Another prisoner was convicted of the actual stabbing, and a third man of ordering the killing. Of the three accused, only
It’s easy to forget that California is a state with the death penalty on its books, and it’s not hard to see why. The state has not executed anyone in 12 years as January 2018. Nevertheless, California has sentenced nearly 1,000 people to death since the current system was adopted in 1978. There have been 13 executions in that time, and we currently house more people under sentences of death
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court sent the case of Keith Tharpe, who was sentenced to death in 1991 in Georgia, to a lower court to reconsider whether a juror who voted to put him to death did so because Tharpe is black. Tharpe’s appeal was based on an affidavit that his lawyers filed of an interview they conducted with Barney Gattie seven years after the trial. In the interview,
Doyle Lee Hamm has been on Alabama’s death row for 30 years. He is 60 years old, and is terminally ill with cranial and lymphatic cancer, which he has been battling for almost four years. Nevertheless, the Alabama Supreme Court signed Hamm’s death warrant last month, and he is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on February 22. “When judges schedule a lethal injection for a terminally ill prisoner
There are six major-party candidates running for governor of California, and according to a recent report in the San Francisco Chronicle, all but one is opposed to the death penalty. “As the death penalty has gradually lost its once-overwhelming public support, it may also have lost its effectiveness as a wedge issue among office-seekers,” says reporter Bob Egelko. The four Democrats who are running include Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, former
In what one local television station called “one of the most shocking and drastic shakeups of the district attorney’s office that anyone can recall,” newly-elected Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner fired 33 staff members, including division chiefs, long-time prosecutors, and high-ranking deputies, on Monday. And the Philadelphia Inquirer reports that “as many as a third of the office’s homicide prosecutors were asked to leave.” Krasner, a former public defender, campaigned
