Arbitrariness
,New Voices
,Sep 20, 2007
In a letter citing political manipulation of the death penalty by the state’s chief prosecutor, 41 members of Alabama’s District Attorneys Association called on Attorney General Troy King to apologize to Shelby County District Attorney Robby Owens…
Arbitrariness
,New Voices
,Sep 18, 2007
Alabama Attorney General Troy King (pictured) recently stripped a capital murder case from veteran Shelby County District Attorney Robby Owens because Owens expressed concerns in a court hearing about the fairness of an inmate’s death sentence. Ow…
Arbitrariness
,Costs
,Race
,New Voices
,Nov 09, 2017
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — the nation’s third largest death-penalty county — has elected as its new district attorney a cand…
New Voices
,May 31, 2019
Aramis Ayala (pictured), the first African American elected as a state attorney in Florida, will not seek re-election as Orange-Osceola County State Attorney. Citing conflicts with the Florida Sup…
Arbitrariness
,Costs
,New Voices
,Sep 05, 2006
The death penalty is rarely sought in the city of Baltimore, but in adjoining Baltimore County almost every eligible case becomes a capital case. Presently, there are 7 active death-penalty cases in Baltimore County, more than the city of Baltimor…
New Voices
,Jan 10, 2017
Newly-elected Denver, Colorado District Attorney Beth McCann (pictured), sworn into office on January 10, 2017, has said that her administration will not seek the death penalty. Asked by 9News, Denver’s NBC affili…
Costs
,New Voices
,Sep 14, 2007
Florida State Attorney Harry Shorstein recently said that cuts to his budget could force his staff to make tough decisions with regard to criminal prosecutions. Shorstein said a predicted budget cut for the 20 state attorney offices in Florida wou…
Victims' Families
,New Voices
,Aug 01, 2007
When weighing whether to seek the death penalty, Tulsa County First Assistant District Attorney Doug Drummond says that he tries to determine how future juries will assess the evidence, as well as how a death penalty case will imp…
Race
,New Voices
,Mar 23, 2017
The Florida Legislative Black Caucus has joined more than 100 lawyers and legal experts and the parents of murder victim Sade Dixon in urging Governor Rick Scott to rescind his order removing Orange-Osceola County
Sentencing Alternatives
,Jan 31, 2020
After nearly two decades of capital trials and death-penalty reversals, former Florida death-row prisoner David Snelgrove has been resentenced to life in prison without parole. His three sentencing trials provided a barometer of t…
New Voices
,Mar 17, 2017
Saying that pursuing the death penalty “is not in the best interests of this community or in the best interests of justice,” Orange-Osceola County, Florida State Attorney Aramis Ayala (pictured) announced on March…
Mental Illness
,Recent Legislative Activity
,New Voices
,Feb 17, 2017
In an op-ed in the Memphis newspaper, The Commercial Appeal, former Tennessee Attorney General W.J. Michael Cody (pictured) has expressed his support for a bill that would exempt people with serious mental illness from th…
Innocence
,New Voices
,Apr 18, 2007
(Pictured left to right, Harold Wilson, Barry Scheck, and Sam Millsap) During a press conference near the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, 16 former death row inmates whose convictions were overturned joined noted attorney Barry Scheck (…
Sentencing Data
,New Voices
,Jun 11, 2018
In the midst of a sharp decline in death sentences in the state, the Georgia Supreme Court on June 4 heard a direct appeal in a capital case for the first time in two years. In March 2018, Georgia…
Public Opinion
,New Voices
,Aug 08, 2018
In an election viewed as a referendum on racial justice and criminal justice reform, death-penalty opponent Wesley Bell (pictured, left) soundly defeated seven-term incumbent, Robert McCulloch (pictured, right) fo…
Juveniles
,Race
,Clemency
,Upcoming Executions
,Federal Death Penalty
,Dec 08, 2020
As the December 10, 2020 execution date of federal death-row prisoner Brandon Bernard (pictured with his family) approached, jurors and a former prosecutor in his case came forward saying that the teen offender’s life should be sp…
Mental Illness
,Clemency
,New Voices
,May 25, 2006
John W. Whitehead, founder and president of the Rutherford Institute, called for clemency for Percy Lavar Walton, a Virginia inmate scheduled to be executed on June 8. Walton is a psychotic schizophrenic who has s…
Costs
,Innocence
,New Voices
,Jul 11, 2016
A federal court jury has awarded six Nebraska exonerees (pictured, at their exoneration) $28 million in damages for official misconduct that led to their wrongful convictions in the 1985 rape and murder of Helen Wilson. T…
New Voices
,Jul 19, 2017
A new generation of prosecutors, elected across the country on a platform of criminal justice reform, are taking a different approach to criminal justice policies than their predecessors, including a reduction in the use of capital punishment. A
Intellectual Disability
,Mental Illness
,Public Opinion
,Feb 03, 2022
Likely voters in Clark County, Nevada overwhelmingly oppose the use of capital punishment against broad categories of vulnerable and impaired persons whom county prosecutors have been trying to execute, a new poll…
Race
,Feb 28, 2024
A new report from the Texas Defender Service (TDS) titled “Arbitrary and Capricious: Examining Racial Disparities in Harris County’s Pursuit of Death Sentences” was published on February 22, 2024 and is the latest in series of TDS reports on use o…
New Voices
,May 14, 2008
William Neukom, the President of the American Bar Association, recently wrote about the death penalty in conjunction with a visit to Duke University Law School in North Carolina, where he addressed the graduating …
Sep 12, 2003
As the October 1st deadline for Florida inmates to request DNA testing of evidence that could prove their innocence looms, Broward County prosecutors have announced that they will allow inmates access to the crucial testing after the deadline pass…
Recent Legislative Activity
,New Voices
,Jan 13, 2006
A group of 40 law enforcement officers, current and former prosecutors, and judges at the state and federal level have urged California lawmakers to enact a temporary halt to executions in the state while a commission examines the accuracy and fai…
Innocence
,Recent Legislative Activity
,New Voices
,Jan 10, 2006
As California lawmakers consider legislation that would put executions on hold for two years while a 13-member commission reviews the problem of wrongful convictions in the state, a group of current and former prosecutors have sent members of the …
Innocence
,New Voices
,Sep 17, 2008
Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins announced that he will be reexamining nearly 40 death penalty convictions in his county. No executions will occur in the county until he has reviewed the cases in detail. Watkins said he will start wit…
Jan 09, 2004
Kamala Harris, the newly-elected San Francisco District Attorney, recently spoke about her approach to keeping the community safe: The dialogue about public safety in San Francisco and across the country is usually dominated by …
Arbitrariness
,Costs
,Sentencing Alternatives
,Victims' Families
,New Voices
,Jul 31, 2007
Billy Hill spent seven years as a district attorney in Shelby, Coosa, and Clay counties in Alabama, and has reconsidered his stance on capital punishment. Mr. Hill says that he would welcome a moratorium on executions in Alabama w…
New Voices
,Jul 07, 2008
A former California deputy district attorney recently explained how he had changed his views on the death penalty after once arguing for it at trial. From that experience, he concluded he “won’t do it again.” As the prosecutor in …
Arbitrariness
,New Voices
,Sep 12, 2016
In a recent commentary in the Columbus Dispatch, former Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro (pictured) criticized the state’s death penalty as “a broken system that currently serves only the interest of Ohio prosecuto…
New Voices
,Feb 13, 2006
Steven P. Grossman, a former New York City prosecutor and a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, recently wrote in The Baltimore Sun that the death penalty is “not worth the societal effort it requires and the wounds it causes.”…
Innocence
,New Voices
,Oct 19, 2016
Edwin Meese III (pictured), who served as U.S. Attorney General under President Ronald Reagan, and Robert Morgenthau, the long-time district attorney of Manhattan who served as a U.S. attorney under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, b…
Jul 23, 2003
After years of supporting capital punishment, former San Francisco prosecutor Bill Fazio recently changed his position on the death penalty. Fazio, who now serves as a defense attorney, stated, “Life without parole is a viable alternative.” He not…
New Voices
,Feb 19, 2007
Former Connecticut state prosecutor and legal analyst Susan Filan recently stated that the death penalty is not an appropriate sentence, particularly when the crime appears to be a heinous violation of the sanctity of life . In her commentary post…
New Voices
,Oct 22, 2007
A former Tennessee Attorney General, W.J. Cody, and a U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, Gilbert Merritt, both members of the American Bar Association’s Tennessee Death Penalty Assessment Team, called on policymakers to thoroughly review the state’s cap…
Innocence
,New Voices
,Oct 13, 2008
A former Dallas County prosecutor has abandoned his longstanding support of the death penalty and is now opposed to capital punishment based on recent exonerations in Texas and elsewhere. James Fry, who prosecuted…
Arbitrariness
,New Voices
,Federal Death Penalty
,Sep 26, 2008
Former U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton expressed relief that the Justice Department is no longer seeking to execute a defendant in the case that was cause for his termination. Charlton told the Associated Press that he did not think t…
Sentencing Alternatives
,Victims' Families
,New Voices
,Mar 10, 2016
Creighton Horton spent 30 years as a prosecutor with the Salt Lake District Attorney’s Office and Utah Attorney General’s Office before retiring in 2009. In a recent op-ed, he said his experience handling capital cases led him to …
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,New Voices
,May 23, 2006
Girvies Davis was executed in Illinois in 1995 after a conviction based largely on his own confession. Davis’ appellate attorney was David A. Schwartz, who now serves as senior vice-president and baseball legal counsel at CSMG Sports. Schwartz wri…
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,Race
,Clemency
,New Voices
,Aug 10, 2006
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, together with the Federalist Society and the Constitution Project, recently sponsored a panel in Washingto…
Apr 14, 2004
A bipartisan measure to eliminate the juvenile death penalty in Florida has passed the Senate Criminal Justice Committee and is now on its way to the full Senate for consideration. The measure was introduced by Republican Senator Victor Crist, a d…
Sep 13, 2004
Thomas F. Kelaher, the new president of the County Prosecutors Association of New Jersey, said that it is time to start rethinking the use of the death penalty in the state. Although Kelaher is a supporter of the death penalty, he noted: “…
Sentencing Alternatives
,Victims' Families
,New Voices
,Nov 14, 2006
Prosecutors in Utah have stated that the sentencing option of life without parole has been very helpful in giving jurors and family members of victims a viable alternative to the death penalty. Salt Lake County District Attorney David Yocom noted…
Dec 16, 2004
As New York lawmakers conducted the first in a series of hearings on the state’s death penalty, Robert M. Morgenthau, Manhattan’s long-serving District Attorney, recommended that New York abandon the practice: “It’s the deed that teaches, not the …
Aug 10, 2004
Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley has sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft requesting that the Justice Department not seek the death penalty for a Dorchester drug dealer charged with murdering a rival. Ashcroft has …
May 04, 2004
District attorneys from several Massachusetts counties, including Suffolk, Norfolk, Middlesex, Essex and Barnstable, had strong reservations about Governor Mitt Romney’s attempt to establish a nearly “foolproof” death penalty system in the state. …
Costs
,Deterrence
,Recent Legislative Activity
,New Voices
,Jan 01, 2011
Montana Assistant Attorney General John Connor has voiced support for a legislative measure that would abolish capital punishment in his state. Stating his belief that the death penalty does not deter crime and is expensive, Conn…
New Voices
,Federal Death Penalty
,Feb 04, 2008
In a recent speech at the American University school of law, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who presided over the trial of 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, said that the government’s decision to seek the…
Deterrence
,New Voices
,Mar 16, 2006
New Jersey Attorney General Zulima Farber (pictured) recently voiced her support for extending the state’s moratorium on executions, noting that she does not believe the death penalty is a “necessary tool” for prosecutors and believes capital puni…
New Voices
,Jan 04, 2007
The report from the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission that called for an end to the state’s death penalty was prepared by a group of individuals representing a wide variety of viewpoints and experience. The members of the …
Recent Legislative Activity
,New Voices
,Dec 23, 2008
In December 2007, New Jersey became the first state to legislatively abolish the death penalty in 40 years. In commenting on the absence of capital punishment for one year, a number of state prosecutors found no problems with the …
Sep 22, 2003
After U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft authorized a federal death penalty prosecution against two Massachusetts men accused of a gang murder, the local Suffolk County District Attorney, Daniel F. Conley, objected to using capital punishment to …
Aug 07, 2003
In an op-ed that appeared in the Los Angeles Times on the day Indiana death row inmate Darnell Williams received a stay of execution to allow testing of crucial DNA evidence that could save his life, the prosecutor from the case, Thomas Vanes, exp…
Jun 11, 2004
A Kentucky prosecutor raised religious objections to the death penalty in asking to step aside in the case of two men charged with murder. J. Stewart Schneider, the commonwealth’s attorney in Boyd County in northeastern Kentucky, said Thursday he …
Jul 25, 2003
Doubts about the appropriateness of a death sentence have prompted former prosecutor Thomas Vanes to call for new DNA testing in the case of Darnell Williams, a man he sent to death row as a Lake County, Indiana state’s attorney. Williams is sched…
Innocence
,Victims' Families
,New Voices
,Dec 29, 2007
In a recent front-page article in the New York Times, Joshua Marquis, the district attorney in Clatsop County, Oregon, and a vice president of the National District Attorneys Association, indicated that most prosecutors with experience in death pe…
Recent Legislative Activity
,New Voices
,Mar 15, 2019
Two prosecutors with different philosophical perspectives on capital punishment have called on their respective states to abolish capital punishment. Boulder County, Colorado, District Attorney Michael Dougherty (pictured, left), …
New Voices
,Federal Death Penalty
,Apr 12, 2006
In a recent New York Times op-ed, John Farmer, senior counsel to the 9/11 commission and a former New Jersery attorney general, states that seeking the death penalty for Zacarias Moussaoui detracts from U.S. efforts to seek justice against senior …
Jul 29, 2004
In Texas, Jefferson County District Attorney Tom Maness recently noted that the time-consuming and costly nature of capital punishment may lead to its demise. “I think this is the beginning of the end of the death penalty,” said Maness after a Cri…
Arbitrariness
,New Voices
,Jul 14, 2006
Stuart Streichler served as a law clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Gregg v. Georgia. He observed many capital cases and now concludes: “A fundamental idea of American law is…
Aug 06, 2003
A recent article in Time looks at the career of Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle. The article traces Earle’s evolving opinion on the death penalty since he was first elected D.A. in Texas in 1976, the year the U.S. Supreme Court reinst…
Recent Legislative Activity
,New Voices
,Jan 08, 2007
Victims’ advocates and prosecutors are urging Texas legislators to exclude the death penalty from new legislation designed to toughen penalties for repeat child molesters. Those opposed to the measure fear that threatening death sentences for sex …
New Voices
,Nov 14, 2019
Reform prosecutors made further inroads into the administration of American law enforcement, sweeping county elections in Northern Virginia and gaining control of prosecutor’s offices in Pennsylvania and California. Progressive prosecutors rode a …
Innocence
,New Voices
,Nov 15, 2016
Jefferson County, Alabama is among both the 2% of counties that account for more than half of all executions in the U.S. and are responsible for more tha…
Race
,New Voices
,Dec 02, 2016
With 55 executions since the 1970s, Dallas County, Texas, ranks second among all U.S. counties — behind only Harris County (Houston), Texas — in the number of prisoners it has put to death. It is also among the
Innocence
,Race
,New Voices
,Apr 25, 2018
Three powerful new documentaries that explore the modern death penalty in the United States are set to premiere this April. Oscar-winning actress Viola Davis and Julius Tennon are executive producers of The Last Defense…
Costs
,New Voices
,Jan 05, 2016
Natrona County, Wyoming District Attorney Mike Blonigen (pictured) recently called for a reconsideration of the state’s death penalty after a federal judge overturned the death sentence of Dale Wayne Eaton, a decade after Blonigen…
Sentencing Data
,New Voices
,Dec 13, 2018
A group of justice-reform organizations has issued a new report, 21 Principles for the 21st Century Prosecutor, that calls on prosecutors to “work to end the death penalty” as part of its recommended reforms in prosecutorial practices. Th…
Clemency
,New Voices
,Jun 14, 2018
The Ohio Parole Board held a hearing on June 14, 2018 to consider clemency for death-row prisoner Raymond Tibbetts, whose February 13 execution was halted by Governor John Kasich
United States Supreme Court
,New Voices
,Executions Overview
,Nov 01, 2007
As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to consider the constitutionality of Kentucky’s lethal injection procedures, prosecutors in three Texas counties have decided to await the Justices’ ruling rather than ask judges to set execution…
Recent Legislative Activity
,New Voices
,Feb 04, 2020
Calling the death penalty “a failed government program,” 21 current and former Virginia prosecutors have signed on to a letter to the commonwealth’s General Assembly urging the legislature to abolish capital punishment. The letter was signed by fo…
Public Opinion
,New Voices
,May 10, 2018
Voters in North Carolina added their voices to an expanding movement for local criminal justice reform, ousting sheriffs who closely cooperated with federal aut…
Arbitrariness
,New Voices
,Dec 01, 2008
The state of Washington has carried out 4 executions in 45 years, the last one being in 2001 when James Elledge waived his appeals and was executed. Some prosecutors, legislators, and defense attorneys are questioning the value of keeping the syst…
