While we’re on the subject. . .
“Whether you support capital punishment or oppose it, one thing is clear. Oklahoma’s system is so fundamentally flawed that we cannot know that someone who
“Whether you support capital punishment or oppose it, one thing is clear. Oklahoma’s system is so fundamentally flawed that we cannot know that someone who
In South Carolina, executions are on hold until at least February, when the supreme court will hold a hearing over a lawsuit filed by four
Late last month, Pennsylvania House Bill 999 to repeal the death penalty passed out of the Judiciary Committee on a vote of 15-10. It was
Texas killed 53-year-old Brent Ray Brewer by lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville on November 9. And one week later, on November 16,
Texas killed 53-year-old Brent Ray Brewer by lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville last week. Brewer was executed for the April 1990 death
Gallup released a poll this week that found that for the first time since 2000 when it began asking whether respondents believed the death penalty
The Alabama Supreme Court ruled last week that the state attorney general can proceed with his plan to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith with nitrogen gas,
In Florida, a new law that would allow a person convicted of the rape of a minor to be sentenced to death went into effect
University of San Francisco School of Law professors Lara Bazelon and Charlie Nelson Keever explained “Why California’s reinvestigation of an infamous quadruple murder case is
Because it doesn’t have access to lethal injection drugs, Ohio’s last execution was in 2018. And now, a group of bipartisan legislators has introduced a House bill, a companion piece to a pending Senate bill, to abolish capital punishment altogether. But, according to WTGV-13, while sponsors say they have more support this year than they have previously, “Senate President Matt Huffman, who controls what gets put up for a vote
The Tennessee Criminal Court of Appeals has affirmed a lower court ruling that Pervis Payne, who spent 34 years on Tennessee’s death row before being resentenced to life in prison last year, can serve his two life sentences concurrently, the Commercial Appeal reported. The ruling, issued late last month, means Payne will be eligible for parole in less than four years. Payne, now 54, was sentenced to death in 1988
In Alabama last week, where corrections officials botched three executions in a row last year because of the execution team’s inability to insert IV lines for lethal drugs, Attorney General Steve Marshall asked the state Supreme Court last week to set an execution date for Kenneth Smith and indicated the state plans to kill Smith by nitrogen hypoxia. Smith’s execution was called off last November after the state repeatedly failed
Gerald Pizzuto, Jr., has been on Idaho’s death row since his 1986 conviction of the murders of Berta Herndon and her nephew Del Herndon in 1985. He is 66 years old, dependent on a wheelchair, diabetic, and on hospice care because of advanced bladder cancer. He suffers from the effects of repeated brain injuries and the horrific consequences of the sexual and physical abuse he suffered when he was a
“It’s quite horrifying — as it’s intended to be,” is how the spiritual advisor who was in the death chamber with Michael Tisius when the State of Missouri killed him last month describes the experience of witnessing the state kill one of its citizens. In an interview with Flatland, the Rev. Melissa Potts Bowers describes the process as both “bizarre” and a “one-man show” [whose] “murder is the highlight of
Florida plans to continue its frantic pace of executions. The state announced it will kill Michael Duane Zack III in October, its sixth execution this year. It will be the eighth state killing since Gov Ron DeSantis, a presidential candidate who has expanded the state’s death penalty laws, was first elected in 2019. Zack, 55, was sentenced to death for the murder of Ravonne Smith in 1996. He is also
Aba Gayle, who became a passionate opponent of the death penalty after her 19-year-old daughter, Catherine Blount, was murdered, died in Silverton, Oregon, in late June. She was 89. Aba Gayle’s (her preferred moniker) daughter, Catherine, and her friend, 29-year-old Eric Hanson, were killed in Placer County, California, in September 1980. Douglas Mickey, an acquaintance of the couple, was convicted of the murders in 1983 and sentenced to death. For
A federal jury in Pittsburgh sentenced Robert Bowers to death earlier this month for his October 2018 attack on the Tree of Life synagogue that left 11 congregants dead and six others wounded. The jury had found Bowers guilty in June on 63 counts, including hate crimes resulting in death and obstruction of the free exercise of religion, charges that made him eligible for the death penalty. According to the
(This post was updated to reflect that Johnny Johnson was killed by the State of Missouri on Tuesday night.) The State of Missouri killed Johnny Johnson Tuesday night. The execution was the state’s fourth this year. He was killed by lethal injection for the 2002 kidnapping, attempted rape, and killing of six-year-old Casey Williamson in St. Louis. Johnson’s lawyers had argued that he was ineligible to be executed because of