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
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
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,
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
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
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
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
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
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
Ohio executed its first inmate in three-and-a-half years late last month, using a new three-drug protocol, including midazolam, rocuronium bromide, and potassium chloride. Forty-five-year-old Ronald Phillips was put to death for the rape and murder of Sheila Marie Evans in 1993. Akron Beacon Journal reporter Jim Mackinnon, who witnessed the execution, reported that Phillips apologized to his victims’ family members, who were present, saying “I’m sorry to each and every
“There is no justification for executing the insane, and no reasoned support for it, as only a glance at the brief of amici—filed by able and fervent citizens spanning the spectrum of political views—will confirm.” So wrote the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in its ruling last month that sent the case of Scott Panetti, a mentally ill man who was sentenced to death in 1995 in Texas,
In Texas, TaiChin Preyor was executed late last month, after his appeal was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court. Preyor, who was convicted of the murder of 24-year-old Jami Tackett in 2004 during a drug deal, had appealed his conviction on the grounds that his lawyer had never tried a murder case in Texas before, and relied on Wikipedia for research. This was the fifth execution in Texas this year.
“To spend 20 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, and emerge with his humanity and dignity intact … to spend 20 years, day in and day out, fighting for his freedom, it was just so extraordinary. It was totally compelling.”
A petition drive that was started by five men exonerated from Ohio’s death row culminated today with the delivery of 100 thousand signatures to the office of Ohio Gov. John Kasich, asking him to block the execution of Ron Phillips this Wednesday, July 26. Ohioans to Stop Executions delivered the petitions, which were signed by a former prison warden, faith leaders, murder victims’ family members, corrections officials, and citizens. Two
A diverse group of death penalty opponents held a news conference at the state capitol in Ohio on Wednesday to ask Gov. John Kasich to call off the scheduled execution of Ronald Phillips next Wednesday. The Columbus Dispatch reports that a group that included faith leaders, a retired appeals court judge who chaired the state’s task force on the death penalty, corrections officials, and death row exonerees delivered a petition
Scharlette Holdman, who died last week, was renowned in the criminal justice world as one of the foremost death penalty mitigation specialists in the country. “What she saw is that killers are not just born. They have had unbelievably abused and neglectful lives, and that history is relevant,” death penalty lawyer George Kendall told the Marshall Project. Much like Marie Deans, another well-known mitigation specialist (we interviewed her biographer, Todd
“The execution of a man suffering from severe mental illness is an act of particular barbarism — especially if his condition may have been misdiagnosed in trial,” the Washington Post wrote about the William Morva case late last month. But that editorial, as well as one that ran in the LA Post Examiner declaring that, “There are many good, even honorable reasons, for Governor McAuliffe to spare Mr. Morva’s life,” had
“We will now reverse the district court’s denial of appointed counsel and expert funding . . . vacate its factual findings relating to Panetti’s competency, and remand for additional proceedings, another chapter in this judicial plunge into the dark forest of insanity and death directed by the flickering and inevitably elusive guides.” With that dramatic opening statement, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit sent the case of
