Breaking News: Christa Pike is still alive after two doses of lethal injection drugs were administered by Tennessee officials. Her attorneys report that she is in critical condition and receiving life-saving care at a hospital. [As of the morning of October 5, there is no new public information; new information will be updated here]

Entries tagged with “Douglas Ramseur”

Issues

Mar 30, 2021

How Capital Defenders Helped End Virginia’s Death Penalty

Virginia’s capital defenders have “worked themselves out of a job,” according to David Johnson, executive director of the Virginia Indigent Defense Commission. The commonwealth’s four capital defense offices, which opened in 2002, are credited with bringing about a dramatic decline in death sentences. That decline was a major factor in Virginia becoming the first southern state to abolish the death penalty. “The playing field was leveled, and with a level playing field, the death penalty was…