Virginia made history in 2021 when it became the first Southern state to abolish the death penalty. Closing the Slaughterhouse: The Inside Story of Death Penalty Abolition in Virginia tells the story of the commonwealth’s journey from leading executioner to groundbreaking abolitionist state. Written by journalist, author, and anti-death penalty advocate Dale Brumfield, the book explores

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In a 4-1 vote, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board denied clemency to Richard Fairchild, the third of 25 people the state scheduled for execution between August 2022 and December 2024. Fairchild’s attorneys argued that he was represented at trial by incompetent counsel who never presented evidence of Fairchild’s severe childhood abuse and of his repeated traumatic brain injuries. Fairchild’s

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Three jurors, including one ‘hard no’ who could not be swayed, voted to save the life of Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz Three jurors spared the life of convicted Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz as they recommended life imprisonment without parole over the death penalty.Cruz shot dead 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February 2018. In 2021, Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty to

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The state of Alabama is set to execute another inmate just two months after having to call off an execution minutes before the death warrant was set to expire.Kenneth Eugene Smith is set to die at William C. Holman Correctional Facility on November 17, according to an order from the Alabama Supreme Court.Smith, now 57, will be executed for the slaying of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, a 45-year-old

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Powered by WPeMatico… Read More “Pope Francis’ Prayer Intention for September: ‘Abolition of the Death Penalty’”

A newly unearthed letter suggests the primary witness against Glossip (and the actual killer) had regrets and made a “mistake.”Dozens of state lawmakers in Oklahoma (several of whom support the death penalty) are urging the state to consider new evidence that might clear death row inmate Richard Glossip, who has been scheduled to be executed on September 22.In a letter dated August 4, 61 state

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At his June 8, 2022 execution in Arizona, Frank Atwood helped prison officials find a suitable vein for the IV line that would administer the lethal-injection drugs to end his life. Jimmy Jenkins, a reporter at the Arizona Republic who witnessed the execution, called the experience of watching Atwood direct the state to his vein “surreal.” He wrote in his account of the execution that “I have

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — It’s unknown how long a stay will hold off the execution of Richard Bernard Moore — South Carolina’s first-ever inmate to be put to death by a firing squad — as his attorneys pursue legal challenges.But the issuance of Moore’s death warrant, initially planned to be carried out April 29, has renewed interest in how a state puts in motion its plans to shoot an inmate to death.

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This article was originally published in Aleteia — Catholic Spirituality, Lifestyle, World News, and Culture. Click here to read the Original Article

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Bishops in the US State of Texas have appealed for mercy to be offered to a mother of 14 and grandmother sentenced to die on April 27, following what has been called a flawed process and conviction.The Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops has asked the State of Texas to spare the life of Melissa Lucio, sentenced to death in 2008 for the death of her two-year-old daughter, Mariah. Lucio claims

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A Franklin-based company has terminated a controversial contract with the state of Alabama after public outcry.FDR Safety, a safety consulting firm, was tasked with devising safety methods for correctional facility employees involved in administering the death penalty in Alabama detention facilities. The state has proposed a new protocol to execute prisoners on death row via nitrogen hypoxia, a

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Oklahoma’s secrecy laws allow the state to obscure where it gets lethal injection drugs. Given the state’s track record, the critics say, that shouldn’t be the case.Several investigations looked into Oklahoma’s two botched executions in 2014 and 2015, and with their findings, they offered advice on preventing the same problems in the future. Nearly none of the recommendations targeted the state’s

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The state of Texas has issued a death warrant seeking to execute Melissa Lucio, a battered woman who was sentenced to death for what may have been an accidental fall that killed her two-year-old daughter. She is scheduled to be executed April 27, 2022.In an interview with the Texas Observer, Tivon Schardl, a lawyer on Lucio’s appellate defense team, called her case “as clear a case of injustice

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For those who want to see the end of the death penalty, there have been some troubling developments in 2021.  50 years ago, the US Supreme Court in Furman v. Georgia held that the death penalty as applied was “cruel and unusual” and therefore in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. The Court plurality found it inconsistent with “the evolving standards of decency that mark the

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At least one in seven death-row prisoners put to death in the United States since executions resumed in 1977 had legal claims in their cases that would render their executions unconstitutional, a new Cornell University Law School study shows.The study, Dead Right: A Cautionary Capital Punishment Tale, by Cornell Law School professors Joseph Margulies, John Blume, and Sheri Johnson was published

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As 2021 came to a close, editorial writers in four death penalty states called for legislative and executive action to end capital punishment or further limit its use.Editorial boards for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and the Idaho Statesman took note that as the death penalty declines in usage and public support, it remains arbitrary and inhumane in its application and

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Last year saw even more diminishment of the death penalty, a non-partisan group that tracks the issue reported late last month.In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine continued to delay executions as he has since he took office at the beginning of 2019. The governor has cited difficulty finding death drugs as the reason for the delays.DeWine last year also signed a law making it illegal to execute people with

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Ohio is getting as close as it’s come in years to abolishing the death penalty. Two bills making their way through the legislature represent a new lease on life for some and endless pain to others.Derrick Jamison, now in Florida, described to us his 20 years on Ohio’s death row for a 1985 murder in Cincinnati for which he was cleared in 2005 after nearly getting the needle 6 times.“It was awful,

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Ernest Johnson became the latest American to be executed on US soil when he was killed on 5 October by lethal injection in a Missouri prison.The technique – in Johnson’s case using pentobarbital – is the most common form of capital punishment in the US, despite medics having repeatedly sounded the alarm over how painful the method of death can be. It came hours after the Pope pleaded for mercy in

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A man exonerated after nearly a decade in prison will receive more than $400,000 from the Maryland Board of Public Works.Kirk Bloodsworth was convicted of rape and murder in 1985 before DNA evidence exonerated him nine years later. The now 60-year-old will be the 1st to receive a payment as part of a new program that began in July and targets people who were wrongly convicted, according to The

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If Biden meant what he said, neither he nor the Justice Department can pick and choose exceptionsThe US Supreme Court heard argument from the Biden administration in support of reinstating the death sentence of Dzhokar Tzarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber, who was 19 years old when he and his 28-year-old brother Tamerlan committed the horrific attack that killed 3 people.The argument before the

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Through a diplomatic representative, Pope Francis beseeched Gov. Mike Parson to halt the upcoming execution of Ernest Johnson. The letter from Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio (a Vatican diplomat), said the pope asked Parson to consider Johnson’s “humanity and the sacredness of all human life” rather than the specifics of the case. “Governor Parson, the State of Missouri has

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With a parole board recommending Julius Jones’ commutation from death to life in prison with the possibility of parole, Oklahoma’s history of executions has come to light.The state that was the first to allow more than one way to execute someone has a storied and complicated history, including last-minute exonerations and botched deaths. Oklahoma legalized the current death penalty law in 1976,

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