Death penalty receives another blow, this time in Pennsylvania

Galleries - Capital Punishmentsource: Above The Law 
published: 5 January 2016

The death penalty has come under fire recently in state courts. Now a recent case out of Pennsylvania highlights a possible role for state executives in hastening the death penalty’s demise.

Remember how last summer the Connecticut Supreme Court issued an opinion ending the death penalty in Connecticut? The court held that the death penalty violates the Connecticut constitution’s cruel and unusual punishment provision — the state analog of the Eighth Amendment — because the practice of killing convicts “fails to comport with contemporary standards of decency” and “is devoid of any legitimate penological justifications.”

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Killing state capital punishment

Graveyard & Deathsource: Socialist Worker
published: 29 April 2015

Officials in Oklahoma and other states are scrambling to figure out a way to kill people. Concerned over a lack of access to lethal injection drugs, the Oklahoma legislature passed a bill in late April approving the use of the gas chamber for executions.

This comes on the heels of Utah’s move in March to bring back the firing squad as an alternative to lethal injection, an announcement that spurred another round of debate about executions. While the Denver Post editorial board wrote that the firing squad was “not a solution,” a Bloomberg editorial titled “Death by firing squad is more humane than lethal injection” circulated widely.

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Prosecutor apologizes for sending innocent man to Louisiana’s death row

Glenn Ford
Glenn Ford

source: Equal Justice Initiative
published: March 2015

Marty” Stroud III, the lead prosecutor responsible for sending Glenn Ford to death row for a murder he didn’t commit, apologized and called for abolition of the death penalty in an open letter published in the Shreveport Times.

Mr. Stroud wrote in response to the paper’s coverage of Mr. Ford’s struggle to obtain compensation for the nearly 30 years he wrongfully spent on death row.

Mr. Ford was released on March 11, 2014, after the Caddo Parish District Attorney’s office filed a motion to vacate his conviction and death sentence based on new evidence that someone else committed the crime. Louisiana law allows compensation of $25,000 a year capped at $250,000 for the wrongfully convicted, but prosecutors are opposing Mr. Ford’s request.

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