In California, the Los Angeles Times reports that Los Angeles County officials “mistakenly destroyed the evidence” that Scott Pinholster says would prove him innocent of
In its editorial, “Capital Punishment Deserves a Quick Death,” the New York Times refers to the recent attempted execution of Alva Campbell by the State
“I have hope. And because I have hope I have life.” For Kevin Cooper, who has been on San Quentin’s death row since 1985, it
“Unchained Artists,” an exhibition featuring some 50 pieces of artwork, poetry, and handcrafted art objects made by men and women incarcerated in the United States,
On Monday, January 15, an art exhibit featuring the work of prisoners around the country, including those on San Quentin’s death row, will open in
Public support for the death penalty dropped to its lowest level in 45 years in 2017, and the number of death sentences and executions is
Twenty years ago, Lucy Wilke was the prosecutor who sent Jeff Wood to Texas’ death row, even though he never killed anyone. Now, according to
The U.S. Supreme Court will decide soon whether to accept Hidalgo v. Arizona, which not only challenges Arizona’s death penalty statute, but the death penalty
Late last month, federal prisoner Ulysses Jones, Jr. was sentenced to life in prison for the 2006 murder of another inmate at the U.S. Medical
The U.S. Supreme Court sent a condemned Alabama inmate’s case back to a lower court late last month because he did not have access to a mental health expert in preparing a defense based on his mental condition. The Court, in a 5-4 decision, written by Justice Stephen Breyer, said that James McWilliams’ death sentence for raping and killing a store clerk in 1985 should be re-heard, citing Ake v. Oklahoma
After a three-and-a-half-year hiatus, Ohio is again free to tinker with the machinery of death. Ohio has not executed anyone since January 2014, when Dennis McGuire was put to death by lethal injection in a botched execution. But two developments in the last month have cleared the way for the state to resume executions. In June, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, meeting en banc, ruled 8-6 to overturn an
In Florida, the Palm Beach Post reports that Gov. Rick Scott has scheduled the first execution date for an inmate since the U.S. Supreme Court’s January 2016 Hurst v. Florida ruling. That decision found it unconstitutional for states to give judges, not juries, the final decision in death sentencing. It put Florida’s death penalty effectively on hold for 18 months, and will force the state to hold resentencing hearings for hundreds of
Criminal attorney (and DPF board member) Robert M. Sanger’s article in the current Criminal Law Bulletin, “Duties of Capital Trial Counsel Under the California ‘Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act of 2016,” is a guide for trial lawyers in capital cases with pending habeas corpus petitions under Proposition 66. The proposition, which passed in November, is “inoperable” and “unconstitutional” Sanger writes. The California Supreme Court stayed implementation of the proposition
“Marie is one of the unsung heroes from the early years of the fight against the modern death penalty. [Her] work on death row took a terrible physical and mental toll. She died at the relatively young age of 70 – as much a victim of the “machinery of death” as the men she fought to save,” is how Todd Peppers describes Marie Deans, the subject of his biography, A Courageous
William Morva was executed last night, July 6, in the Commonwealth of Virginia, for killing two people, a security guard and a sheriff’s deputy, while he was on a hospital visit from the county jail where he had been incarcerated for a year for a botched burglary. He was sentenced to death in 2008, two years after the murders. Morva suffered from delusional disorder, a disease that made him believe
Rachel Sutphin, the daughter of Eric Sutphin, the sheriff’s deputy who was one of the two people William Morva killed in 2006, is asking Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe to commute Morva’s sentence to life without parole. Morva is scheduled to be executed tomorrow, Thursday, at 9 p.m. (EST). The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Sutphin emailed media outlets today with a statement that she has been a lifelong opponent of the
Two human rights experts at the United Nations are adding their voices to the thousands of people who have written, called, and tweeted Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe to ask that he commute the sentence of William Morva to life without parole, and call off his execution scheduled for Thursday. In a news release, UN Special Rapporteurs on summary executions, Agnes Callamard, and on right to health, Dainius Pūras, said that “We are
“If, from the tangled morass surrounding the death penalty generally, and Morva’s case, specifically — Governor McAuliffe is to emerge from his life or death decision a standard-bearer of modern-day democratic values — a truly viable candidate for Commander-in-Chief in 2020 (and beyond) — there is only one action he can take, that he must take: McAuliffe must spare Mr. Morva.” That’s the stance the LA Post Examiner just took
