Publications & Testimony
Items: 1121 — 1130
Oct 27, 2020
In Partisan Vote, Amy Coney Barrett Confirmed as Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Replacement on U.S. Supreme Court
Amy Coney Barrett has been confirmed as a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, filling the vacancy created by the death of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Shortly after her confirmation by the U.S. Senate on October 26, 2020, Justice Clarence Thomas administered the oath of office to Barrett in an outdoor ceremony on the South Lawn of…
Read MoreOct 26, 2020
Orthodox Church Patriarch Calls Death Penalty Incompatible with Christian Beliefs
The leader of the world’s second largest Christian denomination has joined with the Roman Catholic Church in declaring the death penalty fundamentally incompatible with Christian teachings. In an interview with Vatican News on October 20, 2020, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church, called opposition to the death penalty“the logical and moral consequence” of adherence to Christian…
Read MoreOct 26, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of October 19, 2020
NEWS (10/22/20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court has upheld the conviction and death sentence for Daniel Craven, Jr. for a 2015 prison murder. The court denied Craven’s claims that he was unconstitutionally denied the right to represent himself and that the trial court had violated his right to a fair jury by impaneling an African-American juror whom defense counsel had attempted to peremptorily strike. It also…
Read MoreOct 23, 2020
DPIC Analysis: Use or Threat of Death Penalty Implicated in 19 Exoneration Cases in 2019
Prosecutors or police used or threatened to use the death penalty as a coercive tool that led to or extended the wrongful convictions of at least nineteen people who were exonerated in 2019, a Death Penalty Information Center analysis of data from the National Registry of Exonerations has revealed. Nearly 95% of those cases also involved some other form of major misconduct, the DPIC…
Read MoreOct 22, 2020
World and European Day Against the Death Penalty: Expert Panel Discusses Systemic Flaws in U.S. Death Penalty
Expressing the hope“that we’ll be able to celebrate very soon, together with the American people, the abolition of the death penalty in the United States,” European Union Ambassador to the United States Stavros Lambrinidis opened the EU in the USA and Council of the Europe’s virtual commemoration of World and European Day Against the…
Read MoreOct 21, 2020
New Voices: Woman Who Lost Mother and Husband in Separate Murders Calls on Wyoming to Repeal Death Penalty
A Wyoming woman whose mother and husband were murdered in separate incidents is calling on the state to repeal its death penalty for the benefit of victims’…
Read MoreOct 20, 2020
‘Keep Your Head Up and Don’t Give Up’ — Exoneree Curtis Flowers Gives an Illuminating First Interview to the In the Dark Podcast
In his first interview since his September 24, 2020 exoneration, former Mississippi death-row prisoner Curtis Flowers (pictured) spoke with In the Dark podcast host and lead reporter Madeleine Baran about his 24-year journey to freedom after having being framed, tried six times, sent to death row and finally freed for a murder everyone involved knew full well he had…
Read MoreOct 19, 2020
U.S. Government Sets Two More Execution Dates, Seeking to Put to Death the First Woman and the Youngest Offender in More Than Six Decades
The federal government intends to continue its unprecedented execution spree into December, scheduling the executions of the first woman and the youngest offender put to death by federal authorities in nearly seven decades. In a Friday evening announcement, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on October 16, 2020 that it had set the execution of Lisa Montgomery (pictured) for December 8 and Brandon Bernard…
Read MoreOct 19, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of October 12, 2020
NEWS (10/16/20) — Texas: A divided Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has upheld Kousol Chanthakoummane’s conviction and death sentence, which he argued had been obtained with junk bite mark testimony, hypnotized witnesses, and questionable…
Read MoreOct 16, 2020
Ohio Supreme Court to Review Validity of State’s Execution Protocol
A divided Ohio Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeals of two death-row prisoners who are challenging the legality of the state’s execution protocol. By votes of 4 – 3, the court on October 13, 2020 accepted for review appeals by Cleveland Jackson (pictured) and James O’Neal asserting that Ohio’s execution protocol is invalid because the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) adopted it in violation…
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