From Denver, where the new district attorney says she will not pursue the death penalty in murder cases, to North Carolina, which just marked 10 years since its last execution, the death penalty and its viability is being debated throughout the country.
For the past year-and-a-half, abolitionists, religious and political leaders, victims’ family members, and exonerees have shared their thoughts on the death penalty and why they work so hard to abolish it. Here are some of the highlights of those profiles.
In a surprise announcement, the US Department of Justice says it will investigate the scandal-plagued Orange County District Attorney and Sheriff’s office.
DPF President Mike Farrell wrote a letter to the governor of Alabama asking him to stop the execution of Ronald B. Smith because Smith’s jury recommended a life sentence, but the judge overrode the jury and sentenced him to death. Only Alabama allows a judge to override a jury’s sentence in a death penalty case.
Not quite a year after Nebraska legislators repealed their death penalty, voters brought it back last month, while Nebraska residents voted to enshrine their death penalty statute in the state constitution.
In New Jersey, two legislators want to bring back the death penalty, while in Nevada an assemblyman wants to abolish it. And those are just two of the capital punishment debates raging across the country in the past month. Executions, death penalty cases, legal rulings, and capital cases were front and center in several states. We look at some of the more significant developments.
He has devoted his life to ending the death penalty. After heading the campaign for Proposition 62, Mike Farrell returned this month to Death Penalty Focus, where he has served as president for almost 30 years. He talks about the campaign, its defeat, and where he thinks we should go from here.
It is the highest number of executions since Georgia reinstated the death penalty 43 years ago. But the execution was even more controversial because of the circumstances of the case, a miscarriage of justice so severe, a former chief justice of the state supreme court protested in an editorial in the New York Times.
The Justice That Works Act of 2016 did not receive majority support in the November election. We look at the campaign, some of the factors that led to its loss, and what the future of abolitionism may look like.