Death Penalty News

The number of death sentences handed out by juries has plunged by more than 90% since the 1990s. On July 8, the Death Penalty Information Center, or DPIC, released its midyear update on capital punishment in the United States. Many of the findings were sadly, disturbingly familiar. For example, racial bias still plays a large role in who gets executed, and the Supreme Court continues to allow executions to proceed even when those being put to death have strong claims of innocence. But there was also encouraging news.

The three white men were found guilty of murdering the 25-year-old Black man after chasing him in their trucks through a Georgia neighborhood. ATLANTA (CN) — The 11th Circuit on Friday upheld the convictions of the three white men who murdered Ahmaud Arbery five years ago after chasing the 25-year-old Black man down the streets of a Georgia subdivision. In a split opinion, the circuit judges ruled that sufficient evidence supported their convictions.

Should Payton Gendron be executed for his racist massacre of 10 Black people last year at a Buffalo supermarket? Should he be strapped to a gurney and a fatal chemical cocktail pumped into his veins, shutting down his heart? Or should he spend the remainder of his life behind bars with no opportunity for freedom? It would likely be decades; he is now only 20 years old. Locally, the decision is being closely monitored by those who suffered the most — the families of the murdered victims. "The victims in this case will have differing views on this issue," the defense lawyers for Gendron wrote in court papers. "Some may support a capital prosecution. Others may, instead, prefer the criminal case to be resolved expeditiously with a sentence of life without parole while they pursue civil remedies to bring accountability to others."

Americans' right to legal counsel protects all of us against the government's power to lock us away, confiscate our possessions and deny us the ability to earn a living. Sixty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court's Gideon v. Wainwright decision established one of the most vital components of our justice system by recognizing that people accused of a crime have a Sixth Amendment right to effective legal counsel. That right protects all of us against the government's power to lock us away, confiscate our possessions and deny us the ability to earn a living. But six decades after the Gideon decision was handed down, the promise of that ruling – America's promise – remains unfulfilled.

The Ministerial Committee on Legislation on Sunday approved a bill that institutes a death penalty for terrorists. The approval came despite Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara’s issuing an opinion last week that there was a “legal impediment” to voting on the law before the national security cabinet meets to decide whether the penalty would create deterrence. According to the bill proposed by Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech, someone who “intentionally or out of indifference causes the death of an Israeli citizen when the act is carried out from a racist motive or hate to a certain public... and with the purpose of harming the State of Israel and the rebirth of the Jewish people in its homeland,” faces a death sentence, and that sentence alone.

The gunman who killed 10 people and injured three last year in a racist attack on a grocery store that served a predominately Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, is set to be sentenced Wednesday on state charges related to the shooting. Payton Gendron, a 19-year-old White man, pleaded guilty in November to one count of domestic act of terrorism motivated by hate, 10 counts of first-degree murder, three counts of attempted murder and a weapons possession charge in the mass shooting at Tops Friendly Markets on May 14. He is expected to be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

This week, President Biden renewed his commitment to “restore the soul of the nation” in his State of the Union address. He went on to say that “our nation is working for more freedom, more dignity and more peace, not just in Europe, but everywhere.” As President Biden works to achieve this vision, there is one opportunity he must not miss to repair the soul of this nation: commute federal death row. We are an outlier amongst our allies in our retention of capital punishment. The federal government and 24 states still have the death penalty, and three more states still have it in their laws, but with a moratorium on executions.

Texas is seeking on Wednesday to execute John Lezell Balentine, who was convicted of killing three teens in an Amarillo home, as his attorneys pursued last-minute appeals raising questions about juror misconduct and racial prejudice at his trial. Balentine, a 54-year-old Black man, was sentenced to death nearly 25 years ago for shooting three male teenagers, all white, in the head while they slept in a home Balentine had previously shared with his ex-girlfriend, according to court records.

Kevin Cooper, 65, was convicted in 1985 of fatally stabbing two children and 2 adults inside a Chino Hills home. The special counsel appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to look into the case of Kevin Cooper, a death row inmate whose decades-old murder conviction fell under fierce scrutiny in recent years, released a report Friday casting aside the prisoner’s long-standing claims of innocence.

The last thoughts of Kevin Johnson 97 days before his execution were recovered. According to the Death Penalty Information Center , 2,414 death row inmates were executed in 2022. Looking at the statistics makes it easier to overlook these individuals as just numbers. But Kevin Johnson left a journal behind, humanizing the heart-wrenching experience awaiting an inescapable death, per the Kansas City Star . “The state of Missouri just made your worst fears reality. They’re going to literally kill you. Put you on display like a monkey in the zoo then run poison through your veins until your heart stops,” read one of Johnson’s notes. Johnson was only 37 when he was executed by lethal injection. He was convicted in the murder of a white police officer when he was 19 years old. The 97 days between him learning of his execution warrant and Nov. 28, his execution date, consisted of him pouring his thoughts into the blank pages of a notebook. His entries were shared with the Kansas City St...

A Jewish death row inmate who was part of a gang of prisoners who fatally shot a police officer in 2000 after they had escaped should have his conviction overturned and get a new trial because the judge who presided over his case "harbored antisemitic bias," according to a court ruling. Lawyers for Randy Halprin have contended that former Judge Vickers Cunningham in Dallas used racial slurs and antisemitic language to refer to the inmate and some of his codefendants. Halprin, 45, was among the group of inmates known as the "Texas 7," who escaped from a South Texas prison in December 2000 and then committed numerous robberies, including the one in which they shot 29-year-old Irving police officer Aubrey Hawkins 11 times, killing him, during the robbery of a sporting goods store. Of the seven inmates who escaped, one killed himself before the group was arrested. Four have been executed, while Halprin and another, Patrick Murphy, await execution.   "Cunningham not...

Six-and-a-half months ago, a gunman descended on Buffalo's East Side Tops and, through an act of racist violence, shattered a community's sense of security and peace. In his wake, 10 people were killed and countless lives were irrevocably changed. In the early moments before the horrific details of the shooting fully emerged, East Side native Glen Marshall felt he needed to get back home. He needed, like the hundreds of others that gathered then, to be present, to be in community, to honor the lives lost and support the grieving community. “This is the neighborhood Tops, this is the Black community – this is the heart of the Black community,” Marshall said at the time. “If we don’t live in this community, we grew up in this community. Everybody comes back to the community.” More details have emerged in the months since the May 14 shooting at a Tops Friendly Market on Jefferson Avenue: about the perpetuator, about his motives and about the victims. And on Monday morning, Payton ...

With Kevin Johnson scheduled to be put to death at 6 p.m. Tuesday Nov. 29, 2022, the Missouri Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on a stay of execution from state-appointed special prosecutor Edward Keenanat 1:30 p.m. Monday. Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty [MADP] and the Missouri NAACP will host a rally outside the Missouri Supreme Court Building, 207 W. High Street in Jefferson City at 12:30 p.m. “Throughout Kevin Johnson’s trial and appeals, it has become increasingly apparent that this conviction and death sentence is the product of systematic racial discrimination,” Nimrod Chapel, Jr. of the Missouri NAACP said in a release. “The harm done by former prosecutor Bob McCulloch is still a matter of life and death for many living in St. Louis County.” Elyse Max of MADP said, “Bob McCulloch left a stain on Missouri, and we are grateful to the special prosecutor for working to bring light to this situation through the courts.” “Death is never an appropriate punishme...

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 Virginia’s history surrounding capital punishment, starting with the first execution in 1608 through its abolition on July 1, 2021. Characteristic of states whose criminal laws grew out of a legacy of slavery, lynching, and Jim Crow segregation, the capital punishment system in Virginia was deeply rooted in racism and shrouded by a veil of secrecy. Leading the nation with 1,390 executions throughout its history, Virginia also executed more enslaved individuals and women than any other state. The state continued heavily using the death penalty in the modern era, beginning in 1976, even adopting draconian...

Top Justice Dept. official visits to launch an anti-hate crime initiative as community weighs punishment for alleged Tops market shooter Months after his mother, Geraldine, and 9 other Black people died in a Buffalo grocery store at the hands of a White gunman, Mark Talley still wrestles with a question that haunts the victims’ families: What is the appropriate punishment for the perpetrator of such a heinous, racist crime? “Some days, I want him killed in the most painful way — take it back to Genghis Khan’s time, give him as much pain as possible,” Talley said in a telephone interview this week. But in other moments of reflection, Talley, who recently launched a nonprofit community organization called “Agents for Advocacy,” has another view: “I don’t want death. I want him to suffer in jail” for the rest of his life. Talley and others whose lives were upended after the mass shooting at the Tops supermarket in May have shared their views with senior Justice Department officials, who a...

Kate Brown has granted more commutations or pardons than all of Oregon’s governor from the last 50 years combined Last October, Kate Brown, the governor of Oregon, signed an executive order granting clemency to 73 people who had committed crimes as juveniles, clearing a path for them to apply for parole. The move marked the high point in a remarkable arc: as Brown approaches the end of her 2nd term in January, she has granted commutations or pardons to 1,147 people – more than all of Oregon’s governors from the last 50 years combined. The story of clemency in Oregon is one of major societal developments colliding: the pressure the Covid-19 pandemic put on the prison system and growing momentum for criminal justice reform. It’s also a story of a governor’s personal convictions and how she came to embrace clemency as a tool for criminal justice reform and as an act of grace, exercising the belief that compassionate mercy and ensuring public safety are not mutually exclusive. “If you are ...