UN human rights office welcomes California moratorium on death penalty

“I do not believe that a civilized society can claim to be a leader in the world as long as its government continues to sanction the premeditated and discriminatory execution of its people.” - Governor Newsom

The UN human rights office (OHCHR) has welcomed the signing of an executive order by the Governor of California, in the United States, to impose a moratorium on carrying out the death penalty, which grants a reprieve to 737 inmates, up to end of his term in office.

According to news reports, although the state hasn’t executed anyone since 2006, California’s death row holds the highest number of prisoners, more than a quarter of the country’s total, and six out of 10 of them are people of colour.

OHCHR spokesperson Marta Hurtado, said in a statement to journalists that the executive order “consolidates a trend in the US towards the eradication of the death penalty – in law or in practice – over the last decades,” as 20 US states have already abolished it. California now joins three other states whose Governors have put an executive hold on executions.

RELATED | Photos: California's Death Chamber Dismantled!

However, the order can only prevent sentences from being carried out, but the law still empowers prosecutors to request capital punishment, and allows judges to sentence convicted prisoners to death.

“We hope this moratorium will encourage other states to follow suit, and be followed by a complete abolition of capital punishment at the state and federal level,” Ms. Hurtado added, stressing that with this decision, “California joins the international trend towards the reduction and eventual abolition of the death penalty.”

RELATED | Is this the end of the death penalty in California?

The decision of the California Governor, Gavin Newsom, comes after the states’ voters rejected attempts to abolish capital punishment and approved in 2016 a ballot measure to actually speed up executions.

In a public statement, Mr. Newsom said “I do not believe that a civilized society can claim to be a leader in the world as long as its government continues to sanction the premeditated and discriminatory execution of its people,” adding that the death penalty was “inconsistent” with the “bedrock values and strikes at the very heart of what it means to be a Californian.”

The Governor cited a report estimating that 1 in every 25 people on death row is innocent. "If that's the case, that means if we move forward executing 737 people in California, we will have executed roughly 30 people that are innocent", Mr. Newsom said. "I don't know about you. I can't sign my name to that. I can't be party to that. I won't be able to sleep at night."

Source: news.un.org, Staff, March 14, 2019

California Bishops Praise Moratorium on Death Penalty

Planned executive order by Gov. Gavin Newsom has been hailed as a positive step by California’s bishops.

LOS ANGELES — The imposition of a state moratorium on the use of the death penalty by Gov. Gavin Newsom was hailed as a positive step by California’s bishops Wednesday. But the state’s Catholic leaders cautioned the state’s criminal-justice system is still in need of reform.

Newsom announced March 12 that he would issue an executive order to remove the state’s lethal-injection protocol and close the execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison. The moratorium will not result in anyone being released from prison or pardoned.

“This is a good day for California and a good day for our country,” said Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles in a statement. Archbishop Gomez said that the death penalty does not deter crime, nor does it provide “true justice” to those who were victims of crime.

Archbishop Gomez, along with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has long called for an end to capital punishment throughout the United States.

In his statement, Archbishop Gomez said that he believed the moral arguments for ending the death penalty were clear.

“Every human life is precious and sacred in the eyes of God, and every person has a dignity that comes from God. This is true for the innocent, and it is true for the guilty. It is true even for those who commit grave evil and are convicted of the most cruel and violent crimes,” he said.

In the executive order, issued Wednesday, Newsom said that the death penalty was costly, ineffective and racially biased in its application.

Archbishop Gomez agreed with these claims and said that he hopes action will be taken to “address the inequities in our criminal-justice system, to improve conditions in our prisons, and to provide alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent crimes,” as well as to properly rehabilitate prisoners.

“Much more needs to be done in California to address social conditions that give rise to crime and violence in our communities,” said Archbishop Gomez.

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco issued a statement March 13 on behalf of the California Catholic Conference, which represents the state’s 26 bishops. Archbishop Cordileone welcomed an end to the death penalty in the state and expressed hope that the moratorium could be soon codified into law.

San Quentin State Prison is located in Archbishop Cordielone’s archdiocese.

The California bishops’ statement encouraged Newsom to “use well the time of the moratorium to promote civil dialogue on alternatives to the death penalty, including giving more needed attention and care to the victims of violence and their families.”

“Capital punishment is not a cure for the suffering and turmoil inflicted by violent crime; the restorative healing of victims and their families to the extent possible is an essential part of justice.”

California’s last execution was on Jan. 17, 2006. Clarence Ray Allen, 76, was put to death by lethal injection for arranging the 1980 murders of Bryon Schletewitz, 27, Douglas Scott White, 18, and Josephine Linda Rocha, 17, while Allen was already serving a life sentence for murder.

There are 737 people on death row in California, the largest death-row pool in the country and comprising nearly one-quarter of the total number of condemned prisoners in the United States. California has not conducted an execution in over a decade due to a lack of availability of the drugs needed for lethal injection.

Source: ncregister.com, Christine Rousselle/CNA, March 14, 2019

⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Alabama executes Jeremy Williams

Tennessee and Oklahoma have put inmates to death within 30 minutes of each other, and Alabama followed suit hours later as U.S. states executed three men in one day. Tennessee and Oklahoma put inmates to death within 30 minutes of each other Thursday, and Alabama followed suit hours later as U.S. states executed three men by lethal injection in one day for the first time since 2010. The Tennessee man was executed for killing a maid at a motel in 1985, and the Oklahoma man for killing his girlfriend in 2003. In Alabama, a man was put to death Thursday evening for killing a 5-year-old girl he had paid her mother to abuse.

Tennessee executes Darrell Hines

The state has spent millions of dollars over decades to execute a seriously ill man who was already incarcerated. The state of Tennessee executed death row inmate Darrell Hines Thursday morning, according to an advocacy group. No formal announcement of the execution has been issued by state leaders yet. The execution was slated for 10 a.m. Thursday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. [DPN update] Hines was pronounced dead at 10:43 a.m. CDT. His last meal was fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, coleslaw, corn, fries, biscuits, a chicken sandwich, chocolate chip cake, and sweet tea.

Alabama Set To Carry Out Execution This Week

Alabama is preparing to execute Jeremy Williams, who pled guilty to the 2021 rape and murder of five-year-old Kamarie Holland. The execution is scheduled for Thursday (August 13) at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. Williams, who is 41, requested the death penalty and waived his right to appeal, making this the first execution in Alabama this year.

Oklahoma executes Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez

Oklahoma has carried out 1 of 3 executions set for the same day in the United States in another sign of the resurgence of the death penalty in the country. Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez was pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 13, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He was put to death by lethal injection for the murder of his common-law wife in 2003 at their Oklahoma City home. He admitted to police he shot her twice during an argument. Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, did not fight for his life, stunning his attorneys in July when he told the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board that he didn't want clemency. "It's time for me to pay for what I did," he said.

Tennessee set to execute Anthony Darrell Hines

Barring any last-minute interventions, the Tennessee Department of Correction will execute Anthony Darrell Hines by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville Thursday morning. This week, two courts had the opportunity to halt the execution: the federal court in Middle Tennessee and the U.S. Supreme Court. Gov. Bill Lee announced Tuesday he personally would not prevent the execution. “After deliberate consideration of Anthony Darrell Hines’ request for clemency, and after a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and do not plan to intervene,” he said in a written statement. The U.S. Supreme Court has not granted a stay or reprieve.

Tennessee | The doctor who helps put prisoners to death

Dr. Mark Fowler assisted in the failed execution of a Tennessee prisoner. Physicians are meant to heal patients—why is he working in the death chamber? Mark Fowler, a physician with 25 years’ experience, stepped beneath the bright lights and approached the middle-aged man lying on a gurney. Around him, people in medical gowns prepared needles and sterile tubing. It had all the appearances of a hospital setting. Fowler had been called in to help establish an IV line through which the 57-year-old man, Tony Carruthers, would be injected with pharmaceutical drugs. The team had struggled to find a vein, so Fowler was summoned to set a central line—an intravenous catheter inserted into the major vein below the collarbone.

Iran’s War on Women: Executions, Floggings, and the Politics of Fear

The Iranian regime is increasingly using death sentences, corporal punishment, and judicial persecution against women—not only to silence dissent but also to intimidate a society demanding change. The Iranian regime has long viewed women as central to the country’s struggle for freedom—and therefore as central targets of repression. The nationwide uprising of 2022 fundamentally altered the political landscape, demonstrating that Iranian women were no longer merely participants in protest movements but among their principal organizers and symbols. Since then, the authorities have steadily intensified their campaign against women, expanding the use of executions, imprisonment, corporal punishment, and judicial intimidation.

The 'Black Widow' shakes Iran: 10 death sentences for a serial killer who killed 12 men

Kolthum Akbari, an Iranian woman widely dubbed the “Black Widow,” was convicted of serial murders of elderly men she married, often temporarily. Official accounts generally center on 11 murders (plus one attempted murder), though Akbari herself gave varying figures and investigations suggested she had many more marriages. The sentencing occurred primarily in September 2025 in Mazandaran Province, with ongoing reporting and updates into 2026. The 56- to 59-year-old killer confessed to killing at least 11 elderly men after temporarily or officially marrying them; Iranian authorities have linked her to additional marriages and possible further victims.

Arizona prosecutors seek death penalty a second time for 2 inmates

County Attorney Brad Miller said Aug. 6 that the nature of the attack and both men's past criminal records meet the strict legal bar required for execution under Arizona law. FLORENCE, Ariz. - Pinal County prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against two inmates accused of violently killing a fellow prisoner behind bars, officials announced Thursday. Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller filed a Notice of Intent to Seek the Death Penalty against Pete Van Winkle and Tracy Hampton in connection with the fatal attack on Kenneth Thompson.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issues three death penalty reprieves

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issued execution reprieves for three death row inmates on Friday. In a statement, DeWine said he issued reprieves for Keith LaMar, Scott Group, and Davel Chinn, all of whom were set to be executed early next year. LaMar was scheduled to be executed on Jan. 13, 2027. He was convicted of aggravated murder for the deaths of five inmates during a 1993 riot at the Southern Ohio Correctional Institution in Lucasville. He received the death penalty for four of the killings. His new execution date is Jan. 13, 2030. Watch the latest NBC4 headlines in the video player above.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog