While We’re on the Subject. . .
August 10, 2018
In his book, Making Habeas Work: A Legal History, Eric Freedman analyzes how essential the writ of habeas corpus is to a free society, going back
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DPF to Honor the Reverend James Lawson at Southern California Event
August 10, 2018
On Sunday, September 23, in Los Angeles, Death Penalty Focus will honor the Reverend James Lawson, a civil rights icon whom Dr. Martin Luther King,
Acclaimed Documentary “The Penalty” Coming to California in September
August 9, 2018
From the team behind the award-winning One For Ten comes a feature documentary to lift the lid on the human cost of the death penalty
Pope Francis: “The death penalty is inadmissible”
August 2, 2018
Pope Francis today, in what could be a decisive turning point for the future of the death penalty in not just the United States, but
Britain’s anti-death penalty stance tested by two terrorism suspects
July 25, 2018
Britain Home Secretary Sajid Javid is being accused of taking “the power of life and death into his own hands” over his plan, made in
Pennsylvania’s Broken Death Penalty
July 13, 2018
A state commission appointed to study Pennsylvania’s death penalty system released its report late last month, almost five years after its original deadline. The 280-page
Gov. Brown to consider Kevin Cooper’s innocence petition
July 13, 2018
Two-and-a-half years ago, Kevin Cooper’s lawyer, Norman Hile, submitted to Governor Jerry Brown a 235-page clemency petition, pleading for advanced DNA testing of evidence from
DA Elections: “We’re taking from the shadows a vitally important elected position”
July 13, 2018
In terms of the criminal justice system, it can be argued that the most important locally elected official is the district attorney. So, in last
Two condemned men; two classic clemency cases
July 13, 2018
Next Tuesday, 34-year-old Christopher Young is scheduled to be executed in Texas for the 2004 murder of a 55-year-old convenience store owner. Exactly three months
Japan executes seven men in one day
July 13, 2018
Last Friday, Japan executed doomsday cult leader Shoko Asahara and his six followers, who had been sentenced to death for the sarin gas attack on
In brief: July 2018
July 13, 2018
Scott Dozier In Alabama, AL.com reports that eight death row prisoners are dropping their lawsuit challenging the state’s three-drug lethal injection method because they have decided
While we’re on the subject . . .
July 13, 2018
In a New York Times op-ed, “What Happens When Prosecutors Break the Law?” defense attorney Nina Morrison focuses on the case of Suffolk County, New
“Let this powerful moment strengthen our resolve.”
June 1, 2019
Dear Supporters, A couple of years ago, campaigning with the New Hampshire Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, I met Republican State Sen. Kevin Avard,
Formerly condemned 81-year-old Man leaves N. Carolina prison after 42 years; sentence overturned
May 28, 2019
Charles Ray Finch left North Carolina’s Greene Correctional Institution in a wheelchair last Thursday, 42 years after first being sentenced to death for a crime
Catholic bishops ask Florida governor to grant clemency to Bobby Joe Long on eve of execution
May 22, 2019
Florida plans to kill Bobby Joe Long tomorrow for the murder of Michelle Sims in 1984, although he pleaded guilty to killing eight women and
“I will continue to carry the pain of all the grief that I have caused others to endure.” Don Johnson’s letter before his execution
May 16, 2019
(Tennessee is planning to execute Don Johnson tonight for the murder of his wife, Connie, in 1984. Johnson is a very different man from the
Longest serving CA death row prisoner re-sentenced to life
May 10, 2019
Douglas Stankewitz, the longest serving prisoner on California’s death row, was re-sentenced to life without parole last Friday. Stankewitz, who is 60, was sentenced to
Georgia death sentence: “No one will have an abiding conviction that justice was done.”
May 10, 2019
It was the first death sentence a Georgia jury has delivered in five years, and it was handed down last week to a woman who
Texas may finally redefine intellectual disability
May 10, 2019
Seventeen years after the U.S. Supreme Court found in Atkins v. Virginia that executing intellectually disabled prisoners constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of
Ohio finally considers exempting the mentally ill from execution
May 10, 2019
Five years after a statewide task force appointed to study Ohio’s death penalty released a report with 56 recommendations to improve the state’s deeply flawed
In brief: May 2019
May 10, 2019
In Virginia, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals last week upheld a district court ruling that death row prisoners’ long-term detention in solitary confinement creates a
