Sentencing Alternatives

Mar 21, 2023

Death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers in California will be moved out of San Quentin State Prison (pic­tured) and placed in oth­er max­i­mum secu­ri­ty facil­i­ties, as part of a broad plan announced by Governor Gavin Newsom on March 17, 2023. The gov­er­nor seeks to “…

International

Mar 20, 2023

On March 13, 2023 in Japan, Tokyo’s High Court grant­ed a retri­al for Iwao Hakamada, a for­mer box­er known as the ​“longest serv­ing death row” pris­on­er in the world. He was con­vict­ed of mur­der in 1968. Hideaki Nakagawa, Director of Amnesty Internatio…

Mental Illness

Mar 17, 2023

In an op-ed for the National Review, psy­chi­a­trist Sally Satel writes, ​“No civ­i­lized or law­ful pur­pose is served by exe­cut­ing the severe­ly men­tal­ly ill.” Satel is a senior fel­low at the American Enterprise Institute, and she high­lights the deficits…

Conditions on Death Row

Mar 16, 2023

A 2022 arti­cle in the Columbia Journal of Law & Social Problems presents both a his­tor­i­cal overview of the prac­tice of death-row con­fine­ment in the U.S. and the find­ings of a sur­vey of the con­di­tions on death rows in every juris­dic­tion wi…

Sentencing Data

Mar 15, 2023

During the sen­tenc­ing phase of cap­i­tal cas­es, sym­pa­thet­ic evi­dence about the life of the defen­dant is typ­i­cal­ly pre­sent­ed to jurors, who then must decide whether such mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors mer­it spar­ing his or her life. Mitigation spe­cial­ists play a …

Federal Death Penalty

Mar 13, 2023

On March 13, 2023, a jury in the fed­er­al death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tion of Sayfullo Saipov in New York City con­clud­ed its delib­er­a­tions with­out com­ing to a unan­i­mous deci­sion regard­ing sen­tenc­ing. As a result, Saipov will be sen­tenced to life in prison…

Recent Legislative Activity

Mar 13, 2023

Prompted by the high-pro­file cas­es of Melissa Lucio, Andre Thomas, and John Ramirez, bills have been intro­duced in the Texas leg­is­la­ture to help pre­vent mis­car­riages of jus­tice. Representative Joe Moody (pic­tured right) has authored two bills, one…

Arbitrariness

Mar 10, 2023

In an arti­cle in the Cornell Law Review, Professors Jeffrey Fagan, Garth Davies, and Raymond Paternoster show how arbi­trari­ness and race oper­ate at each stage of a cap­i­tal case, from charg­ing death-eli­gi­ble cas­es to plea nego­ti­a­tions to t…

Intellectual Disability

Mar 08, 2023

A Grayson County, Texas court has with­drawn the April 5, 2023 exe­cu­tion date for Andre Thomas (pic­tured), a seri­ous­ly men­tal­ly ill pris­on­er whose legal team request­ed more time to demon­strate that Thomas is incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed. While incarc…

Religion

Mar 08, 2023

In Crossing the River Styx: The Memoir of a Death Row Chaplain, (March 2023), author Russ Ford recounts the abus­es he wit­nessed as the head chap­lain of Virginia’s death row and the strong rela­tion­ships he formed with more than a d…