While we’re on the subject. . . .
July 25, 2024
In her cover story for the New York Times Magazine, “He Was Sent to Prison for Killing His Baby. What if He Didn’t Do It?”
In her cover story for the New York Times Magazine, “He Was Sent to Prison for Killing His Baby. What if He Didn’t Do It?”
Missouri Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey has, for the second time in two months, refused to release a defendant whose murder conviction was overturned, NBC
Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Furman v. Georgia (1972), which found that the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment, 200 death-sentenced men
In April, Alameda County (California) District Attorney Pamela Price announced that a federal district court judge had ordered the DA’s office to review all of
A woman incarcerated at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla died earlier this month during a heat wave that sent Chowchilla’s temperatures over 111
In his first interview since surviving a botched execution in Idaho in February, Thomas Creech tells the New York Times, “I was thinking the whole
In Texas, Ramiro Gonzales was killed by lethal injection Wednesday. The 41-year-old Gonzales was sentenced to death in 2006 for the sexual assault and murder
Last month, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes sent a letter to Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, saying she will begin seeking execution warrants next year
Effective Monday, July 1, an individual convicted of the rape of a minor in Tennessee is eligible for the death penalty. SB 1663, signed by
Almost immediately after being elected Los Angeles County District Attorney in 2020, George Gascón issued a “Death Penalty Policy” promising that his office would not seek the death penalty and, in addition, “will not seek an execution date for any person sentenced to death. . . . will not defend existing death sentences and will engage in a thorough review of every existing death penalty judgment from Los Angeles County
A man who spent 17 years on Oregon’s death row and 25 years in custody for a crime he didn’t commit was freed earlier this month. He is the 194th person exonerated from death row since 1973, the Death Penalty Information Center reported. Jesse Johnson was convicted and sentenced to death for killing Harriet Lavern Thompson in Salem in March 1998. He maintained his innocence from the time he was
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
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