News & Blog

A Routine Execution in Texas

May 15, 2012

Editorial
The New York Times

Carlos DeLuna, who was executed in 1989 by the state of Texas, was almost certainly wrongly convicted of stabbing a young woman to death with a knife in a gas station robbery in Corpus Christi. Carlos Hernandez, who died in a Texas prison while serving time for stabbing someone else, almost certainly killed the young woman and repeatedly told others that he had committed the murder.

This case is the subject of an extraordinary project at Columbia Law School, which this week released a book-length account — called “Los Tocayos Carlos,” or the namesake Carlos — detailing the errors in the investigation and prosecution of Mr. DeLuna from the moment of his arrest.

OH: New Religious Call on Death Penalty

May 8, 2012

Groups Launch New Campaign to Mobilize
Religious Call to Repeal Ohio’s Death Penalty

People of Faith Against the Death Penalty and Ohioans to Stop Executions have teamed up to promote sign-on letters from Ohio religious leaders and lay people calling for the state to repeal the death penalty.

“In the wake of Connecticut repealing its death penalty and Illinois, New Mexico, New Jersey and New York doing the same in recent years, the time has come for Ohio to put an end to the death penalty for the failed public policy that it is,” said Kevin Werner, executive director of Ohioans to Stop Executions. “The religious communities in Ohio are at the forefront of this effort.”

One letter is intended for pastors and religious leaders and another letter is for lay religious people to endorse.

“Ohio’s religious communities have a long history of challenging the death penalty and calling for its repeal,” said Stephen Dear, executive director of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, a national nonprofit. “These letters provide a tangible step concerned people of faith can take towards repealing Ohio’s death penalty and growing this movement.”

The letters are available at www.ohioletter.org.

Show death penalty the door

April 29, 2012

By Jimmy Carter — Special to The Telegraph

For many reasons, it is time for Georgia and other states to abolish the death penalty. A recent poll showed 61 percent of Americans would choose a punishment other than the death penalty for murder.

Also, just 1 percent of police chiefs think that expanding the death penalty would reduce violent crime. This change in public opinion is steadily restricting capital punishment, both in state legislatures and in the federal courts.

As Georgia’s chief executive, I competed with other governors to reduce our prison populations. We classified all new inmates to prepare them for a productive time in prison, followed by carefully monitored early-release and work-release programs. We recruited volunteers from service clubs who acted as probation officers and “adopted” one prospective parolee for whom they found a job when parole was granted. At that time, in the 1970s, only one in 1,000 Americans was in prison.

Historic Victory Today!

April 20, 2012

At this moment we are standing outside the Cumberland County Courthouse in Fayetteville, NC celebrating a huge victory for justice, for the people of North Carolina, for the South and the country as a whole.

Moments ago Judge Gregory Weeks ruled that death row prisoner Marcus Robinson succeeded in showing that racial bias had influenced his death sentence.

Why is this a great moment for justice? Because the existence of the NC Racial Justice Act and the ruling by Judge Weeks today amount to a historic acknowledgement that race influences our courts.

Jim Crow never died. He just put on a suit and tried death penalty cases. That changed today.

Conn. governor signs bill to repeal death penalty

April 26, 2012

By Susan Haigh
The Associated Press

HARTFORD — Gov. Dannel P. Malloy quietly signed a new law Wednesday that ends the state’s death penalty for future crimes, making Connecticut the 17th state to abolish capital punishment.

The Democrat signed the bill behind closed doors, without fanfare. An aide said Malloy was surrounded by lawmakers, clergy and family members of murder victims.

Study says no evidence that death penalty deters crime

April 19, 2012

By Kevin Johnson| Religion News Service

WASHINGTON — In the more than three decades since the national moratorium on the death penalty was lifted, there is no reliable research to determine whether capital punishment has served as a deterrent, according to a review by the National Research Council.

The review, partially funded by the Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice, found that one of the major shortcomings in all previous studies has included “incomplete or implausible” measures of how potential murderers perceive the risk of execution as a possible consequence of their actions.

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PFADP Executive Director speaks at Ebenezer Baptist Church while Rev. Raphael Warnock, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist, and Delbert Tibbs, death row exoneree, look on.