News Brief

Pope Francis has issued a renewed call to ​“all peo­ple of good will to mobi­lize for the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty through­out the world,” devot­ing the September 2022 world­wide prayer inten­tion of his papa­cy to end­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. In a video announc­ing his month­ly prayer inten­tion, the pon­tiff said, ​“Capital pun­ish­ment offers no jus­tice to vic­tims, but rather encour­ages revenge. And it pre­vents any pos­si­bil­i­ty of undo­ing a pos­si­ble miscarriage of…

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The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has stayed the sched­uled July 13, 2022 exe­cu­tion of Ramiro Gonzales (pic­tured) and direct­ed the tri­al court to con­sid­er his claim that his death sen­tence was a prod­uct of false expert tes­ti­mo­ny con­cern­ing his alleged future dan­ger­ous­ness. The stay order, issued July 11, 2022, marked the eleventh time since 2019 that the TCCA has halt­ed an exe­cu­tion to direct a tri­al court to con­sid­er new evi­dence or intervening…

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The cab­i­net of the gov­ern­ment of Malaysia announced on June 10, 2022 that it had reached agree­ment to abol­ish the nation’s manda­to­ry death penal­ty laws and sub­mit leg­is­la­tion to par­lia­ment to pro­vide judges dis­cre­tion to impose oth­er penal­ties for cap­i­tal crimes. Law Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said the cab­i­net also agreed to study pro­pos­als to sub­sti­tute sen­tences for those cur­rent­ly on death row for offences car­ry­ing the death…

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Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has issued a reprieve to death-row pris­on­er Kareem Jackson, call­ing off his sched­uled September 15, 2022 exe­cu­tion and set­ting a new December 10, 2025 exe­cu­tion date. In a news release, the governor’s office said that the reprieve had been issued ​“due to ongo­ing prob­lems involv­ing the will­ing­ness of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sup­pli­ers to pro­vide drugs to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC), pur­suant to DRC protocol,…

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Marty McClain, a Florida cap­i­tal defense lawyer who rep­re­sent­ed the state’s death-row pris­on­ers for more than 30 years, died March 7, 2022 at the age of 67. McClain was a tow­er­ing pres­ence in Florida cap­i­tal lit­i­ga­tion, rep­re­sent­ing more than 300 death-sen­tenced peti­tion­ers in post-con­vic­tion appeals before the Florida Supreme Court. He was respon­si­ble for the exon­er­a­tions of mul­ti­ple inno­cent death-row pris­on­ers, includ­ing Juan Roberto Melendez, and is…

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