Entries tagged with “ACLU”
Arbitrariness
,Race
,Oct 29, 2024
Hearings Begin on Constitutional Challenge to Kansas’ Death Penalty and Capital Jury Selection Process
On October 28, 2024, hearings began in Kansas’ Wyandotte County District Court regarding the constitutionality of the state’s death penalty and its capital jury selection process. A coalition of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, the ACLU of Kansas, the Kansas Death Penalty Unit, and the law firms Hogan Lovells and Ali & Lockwood brought the challenge. The team argues that the death penalty, which is rarely used in Kansas, is “arbitrary, racially discriminatory, unreliable, and…
Policy Issues
Race
,Sep 23, 2022
North Carolina ACLU Challenges Death Qualification of Jurors as Racially and Sexually Discriminatory
Lawyers for a North Carolina capital defendant have filed a sweeping challenge to the method by which death-penalty jurors are empaneled, arguing that the combination of a process known as “death qualification” and discretionary jury strikes produces a jury so racially and sexually unrepresentative that it violates a defendant’s right to a fair…
Executions
May 10, 2022
ACLU Review of Quintin Jones Execution Documents Finds Texas “Woefully Unprepared to Carry Out an Execution”
Documents that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) withheld from public disclosure for months reveal that “confusion and lack of training” have left the state “woefully unprepared to carry out an execution,” according to the American Civil Liberties…
Policy Issues
Costs
,Innocence
,Victims' Families
,Recent Legislative Activity
,Mar 05, 2021
Wyoming Senate Committee Passes Bill to Repeal State’s Death Penalty
A Wyoming state senate committee has advanced to the full Senate a bill to repeal the state’s death…
State & Federal Info
Federal Death Penalty
,Feb 09, 2021
More Than 80 Civil Rights and Advocacy Organizations Urge President Biden to End Federal Executions
A coalition of 82 civil rights and advocacy organizations have called on President Joe Biden to honor his campaign promise of “ensuring equality, equity, and justice in our criminal legal system” by taking executive action to end federal executions. The groups, led by The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, asked Biden to commute the sentences of everyone on federal death row, dismantle the federal death chamber, rescind the federal execution…
Policy Issues
Costs
,Federal Death Penalty
,Feb 03, 2021
Records Disclose Taxpayers Picked Up a Nearly Million Dollar Price Tag for Each Federal Execution
The Federal Bureau of Prisons spent nearly $4.7 million dollars on the first five executions carried out by the Trump administration in July and August 2020, according to redacted government financial records recently obtained by the…
Executions
Upcoming Executions
,Conditions on Death Row
,Federal Death Penalty
,Dec 03, 2020
COVID-19 Prison Outbreaks Kill Death-Row Prisoners in Ohio and Missouri and Infect At Least 11 on Tennessee’s Death Row
New COVID-19 outbreaks on the nation’s death rows have killed prisoners in Ohio and Missouri and sickened at least 11 men on Tennessee’s death…
Executions
Executions Overview
,Federal Death Penalty
,Sep 22, 2020
ACLU: Documents Show Federal Executions Likely Caused Prison COVID-19 Outbreak
Documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act show that the federal government’s choice to bring hundreds of people to the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana to carry out five executions in July and August in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic likely caused a COVID-19 outbreak that has already killed three and hospitalized…