11 January 201116 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Illinois votes to abolish death penalty

originally by: Chicago Tribune
5th January 2011

The death penalty would be abolished in Illinois under legislation the House approved for the first time Thursday, but the ban’s fate is uncertain in the final days of the General Assembly’s lame-duck session. The historic vote comes 10 years after then-Gov. George Ryan placed a moratorium on the death penalty following revelations that several people sent to death row were not guilty.

The capital punishment ban still has some hurdles to clear. But the vote represented a growing recognition that DNA and improved technology in criminal science have exposed an uncertainty in verdicts that cannot be reversed once a death sentence is carried out.

3 January 201116 December 2022 4WardEverUK

More sentenced to die while executing none

originally by: latimes.com
29th December 2010

California continued to buck a nationwide trend away from costly and litigious death sentences in 2010, adding 28 new prisoners to the country’s most populous death row, according to correction officials and a national database on capital punishment. Los Angeles County alone condemned eight defendants to death this year, the same number as Texas, and Riverside County sent six men to await execution, officials said.

The state’s death chamber was idle for a fifth year, though, because of protracted legal challenges of lethal injection practices and a nationwide shortage of the key drug used in the three-injection procedure.

24 November 201016 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Anti-death penalty activist meets with Troy

all credits: AJC News
November 2010

A prominent anti-death penalty activist visited a Georgia death row inmate who claims he was wrongly convicted.

Sister Helen Prejean said Monday that Troy Anthony Davis was in “strong spirits” and that he gave a persuasive argument about his case during her visit with him at the Georgia State Prison in Jackson.

Davis has spent nearly 20 years on death row for the 1989 slaying of an off-duty police officer and has long claimed new evidence would clear his name if a court gave him a chance to present it.