Marcellus Williams is scheduled to be executed on September 24, despite the fact DNA evidence proves he did not kill Felicia Anne Gayle in 1998,
San Quentin’s infamous East Block, home to the largest death row in the United States, is now empty. As of May 28, 607 individuals have
In the days after his death of cardiac arrest on June 9 in Los Angeles, the Rev. James Morris Lawson, Jr., was described as “the
“Amnesty International’s monitoring shows that in 2023 the lowest number of countries on record carried out the highest number of known executions in close to
“Of course, the death penalty is racist. And it would be wrong even if it weren’t,” the Los Angeles Times stated in an editorial earlier
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
The U.S. Supreme Court denied an appeal from San Quentin prison officials to grant them immunity from lawsuits stemming from a COVID-19 outbreak at the
In a speech delivered in Rome in October 2017, Pope Francis told the crowd that “No matter how serious the crime that has been committed,
In 1980, when Larry Roberts was 27 and serving a life sentence at the California Medical Center in Vacaville for killing a high school security
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
In California, Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin announced late last month that he will seek the death penalty for 43-year-old Jesse Ceazar Navarro, accused of killing a Riverside County Deputy Sheriff in January. CBS Los Angeles reported. Navarro is charged with one count of murder for killing 30-year-old Deputy Darnell Calhoun after he responded to a report of a domestic disturbance in Lake Elsinore on January 13. He’s facing
Oklahoma Rep. Kevin McDugle, leader of the effort to free Richard Glossip, alleged last week that the District Attorney’s Council and Pardon and Parole Board decided to deny Glossip’s clemency application before his April 26 hearing had even been held. In an interview with Fox 25, McDugle said that one of the DAs admitted there had been prior communication after the rest of the Council and Pardon and Parole Board
Patrick Crusius, who pleaded guilty in February to killing 23 people and injuring 22 others at an El Paso Walmart store, was sentenced early this month to 90 consecutive life terms, the U.S. Department of Justice reported. Crusius was charged with 90 federal counts, including 45 hate crimes, in a shooting rampage in August 2019. According to the grand jury indictment, two months before the attack, he bought an assault
“If you take away the arguments about cost, deterrence, and closure, what’s left other than a call for vengeance?” the Idaho Statesman asks in an editorial debunking common — erroneous —arguments conservatives use to justify their support for state killing. The paper points to Idaho’s plan to spend $750,000 to build a facility for firing squads to kill people in the wake of a new state law authorizing that method
The State of Alabama killed James Barber last Friday, its first execution since Gov. Kay Ivey called for a temporary halt in November after the state had botched three executions in a row. All three resulted from corrections officials’ inability to insert IV lines for the lethal drugs. On July 28, the execution team tried for three hours to insert IV lines into Joe Nathan James, Jr., and an independent
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to vacate Richard Glossip’s 1997 capital murder conviction and return his case to a district court. In May, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of execution for Glossip two weeks before he was scheduled to be killed. In a news release, Drummond said he filed a brief in support of Glossip’s petition for a writ of certiorari on
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Rodney Reed’s petition for a new trial in the murder conviction that sent him to death row 25 years ago. The ruling surprised many as it came four years after the high court issued a stay of execution for Reed five days before he was scheduled to be killed. In the 7-1 decision, the TCCA found that “Reed has failed to make an
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