New Voices
,Feb 23, 2007
In his new autobiography, “Just Call Me Mike: A Journey to Actor and Activist,” Mike Farrell provides intimate accounts of his life as a television sitcom star and as a human rights activist. Farrell explains how his work on the television progra…
Innocence
,New Voices
,Sep 26, 2016
As voters get set to cast ballots on death penalty questions in California, Nebraska, and Oklahoma, U.S. death row exonerees from across the country have been scouring those states in an effort to…
New Voices
,Jul 03, 2018
Lindy Isonhood (click to enlarge picture) served on the Mississippi jury that sentenced Bobby Wilcher to death in 1994. In a commentary published on Medium, she writes that the decision t…
Clemency
,New Voices
,Lethal Injection
,Oct 09, 2018
Ignoring declarations by six jurors in Edmund Zagorski’s 1984 trial that they would have spared Zagorski (pictured) if they could have sentenced him to life without parole, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam rejected …
New Voices
,Lethal Injection
,May 07, 2019
Sometimes you need a joke about a cute but very angry desert rain frog to prepare an unsuspecting audience for a serious discussion of lethal-injection executions in the United States. That was the approach undertaken by Last Week Toni…
Innocence
,Race
,New Voices
,Aug 17, 2017
Merck Chief Executive Officer Kenneth C. Frazier (pictured) resigned from the president’s American Manufacturing Council on August 14, saying “[a]s CEO of Merck and as a matter of personal conscience, I feel a res…
Recent Legislative Activity
,Sentencing Data
,New Voices
,Executions Overview
,Jan 27, 2016
A decline in executions is likely in Missouri after two years of unusually high numbers. In 2014, Missouri tied with Texas for the most executions in the U.S., and it was second to Texas in 2015. However, changing attitudes about …
New Voices
,Feb 03, 2006
The Constitution Project’s blue-ribbon Death Penalty Initiative released a new report, “Mandatory Justice: The Death Penalty Revisited,” an updated set of guiding principles for reform of death penalty systems. Th…
Mental Illness
,New Voices
,Jun 15, 2017
In a recent commentary article in Medium, psychologist Dr. Frederick J. Frese, III (pictured) — a Marine Corps veteran who has himself been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia — argues that Congress and state legislatures should pass laws e…
Sentencing Alternatives
,New Voices
,Jun 16, 2008
Larry Fitzgerald served as the official spokesman for Texas executions for eight years. He represented the state through 219 lethal injections. Retired in August 2003, Fitzgerald left with what he refers to as a,…
Victims' Families
,New Voices
,Jan 30, 2019
Stephen Curry (pictured, right, during a 2015 visit to the White House), star of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors and executive producer of the upcoming documentary Emanuel, has publicly voiced his opposit…
Oct 21, 2004
A group of 450 attorneys participating in the Conference of Delegates of the California Bar Association has urged a moratorium on the death penalty in California until the state reviews whether capital punishment laws are enforced fairly and unifo…
Feb 09, 2004
Charlize Theron, who recently won a Golden Globe Award for her portrayal of executed Florida death row inmate Aileen Wuornos in the movie “Monster,” has stated that making the movie made her more aware of how “ineffective” capital…
New Voices
,May 18, 2017
Lush Cosmetics announced on May 15 it has launched a commercial effort to raise awareness about capital punishment and support the abolition of the death penalty. The company’s “Death ≠ Justice” campaign includes the release of a short documentary…
New Voices
,Jun 06, 2007
The League of Women Voters of Florida is urging Governor Charlie Crist to continue the moratorium on executions and to consider alternative sentences. In a letter from Florida League President Dianne Wheatley-Gilio…
Innocence
,New Voices
,May 14, 2007
Acclaimed author John Grisham recently told The Kansas City Star that the death penalty should be “abolished forever” in the United States. “I think the system is so badly flawed that all executions should be stopped.… Let’s …
Race
,New Voices
,Dec 15, 2016
Juan Cartagena (pictured), President and General Counsel of LatinoJustice PRLDEF (formerly the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund), says there is “a growing understanding” among Latinos in Florida and across the country “that the dea…
New Voices
,Jun 20, 2006
The League of Women Voters of the United States has adopted an official national policy calling for abolition of the death penalty. During the organization’s 47th biennial national convention in Minneapolis, delegates adopted policy language stati…
Race
,New Voices
,Jan 16, 2006
In a recent interview with The Washington Post, NAACP president Bruce C. Gordon (pictured) spoke about capital punishment and called for a halt to executions in every state until questions of accuracy and fairness can be addressed. Gordon, who cha…
Apr 12, 2004
In a recent opinion piece published in The Miami Herald, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter called on Florida and other states that continue to sentence juvenile offenders to death to abandon the practice, noting that it “violates …
Intellectual Disability
,United States Supreme Court
,New Voices
,Nov 23, 2016
Timothy Shriver (pictured), the Chairman of the Special Olympics, has called on the U.S. Supreme Court to end Texas’ “use of stigmatizing stereotypes” in determining whether a defendant has Intellectual Disability…
Feb 26, 2004
In a recent column, Marc H. Morial, the current President of the National Urban League and former President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, praised recent efforts to halt executions while questions about innocence and fairness are addressed by l…
New Voices
,Federal Death Penalty
,Mar 10, 2008
Since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988, the state of New York has been more reluctant to impose death sentences than other states, according to the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project. New York federal …
New Voices
,Mar 01, 2017
The costs of the death penalty are more than financial, they are emotional; and these effects are felt not just by the parties to the trial and the families of victims and defendants, but by the jurors as well. A recent report in the Akron Bea…
Innocence
,New Voices
,Nov 15, 2016
Jefferson County, Alabama is among both the 2% of counties that account for more than half of all executions in the U.S. and are responsible for more tha…
Race
,New Voices
,Dec 02, 2016
With 55 executions since the 1970s, Dallas County, Texas, ranks second among all U.S. counties — behind only Harris County (Houston), Texas — in the number of prisoners it has put to death. It is also among the
New Voices
,Lethal Injection
,May 16, 2016
On May 13, the pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced that it would impose strict distribution controls to block states from obtaining and using its medicines in executions. In a statement, the company said, “Pfizer makes its products to enhance …
Innocence
,Race
,New Voices
,Apr 25, 2018
Three powerful new documentaries that explore the modern death penalty in the United States are set to premiere this April. Oscar-winning actress Viola Davis and Julius Tennon are executive producers of The Last Defense…
Mental Illness
,Recent Legislative Activity
,New Voices
,Jan 05, 2018
Saying that the death penalty should “be reserved for the ‘worst of the worst in our society,’” retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General John Castellaw (pictured) has urged the Tennessee state legislature to adopt …
New Voices
,Mar 28, 2016
In an interview with The Marshall Project, Texas death penalty juror Sven Berger says he would not have voted to sentence capital defendant Paul Storey to death in 2008 had he known about Storey’s “border…
New Voices
,Feb 07, 2019
Clemency, a film exploring the psychological toll of the death penalty, has been awarded the U.S. Grand Jury Prize for Drama at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival on February 2, 2019. The movie, writt…
New Voices
,Mar 30, 2006
During a recent presentation at Valparaiso University, Sister Helen Prejean (pictured) engaged in a discussion with the school’s pastor, Rev. Joseph Cunningham. Responding to a remark that Prejean had made about defense attorneys only needing to c…
