News and Updates
Catch the latest death penalty news on the DPF blog...
“SCOTUS’ guardrails have given way to removing roadblocks,” says a USF law professor
In her essay in Politico Magazine, USF School of Law Professor Lara Bazelon says the downward trend in death sentences...
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Florida prosecutor seeks death penalty in sex abuse case in a test of a new state law
A Florida prosecutor announced late last month that he will seek the death penalty in a child sexual assault case....
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Melissa Lucio may go free at last
One hundred-ninety-seven individuals sentenced to die have been exonerated in the U.S. since 1973. Melissa Lucio, on Texas death row...
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CA Gov. Gavin Newsom grants 37 pardons; 18 commutations
CA Gov. Gavin Newsom grants 37 pardons; 18 commutations Late last month, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced he pardoned 37...
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While we’re on the subject . . . .
The death penalty “is state-sanctioned homicide, wholly ineffective, often botched, and a much more expensive punishment than life imprisonment. There...
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Headlines
The California Committee on Revision of the Penal Code’s recommendation to eliminate the death penalty is so significant that, “ When the story is told about how the death penalty was abolished in California, the work of a little-known legislative committee will deserve an entire chapter,” DPF board member Stephen Rohde declares.
After Trump's rush of executions, President Biden and a Democratic Congress want to abolish the federal death penalty
Two prominent voices, one a former Democratic US senator, the other a former Republican-appointed US attorney, call on President Biden to commute all federal death sentences, writing that “the death penalty . . . is no longer the polarizing issue it once was.”
I’m grateful to Death Penalty Focus and other organizations, religious and secular, that are faithfully keeping my hope alive. The arc of justice bends slowly — and can sometimes be deflected — but continues to bend toward justice… and mercy.
Chip Sharpe
Supporter of Death Penalty Focus
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To me, supporting the abolition of the death penalty gives me the chance to let those men and women on death row know that I still see them. I see them not as the worst thing they have ever done but as someone who still has a heart just like mine.
Colleen Tracy
Supporter of Death Penalty Focus
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I believe nobody has the right to take anyone’s life no matter the crime. I believe in redemption & mercy and yes, re integration into society if at all possible.
Gerlind Kennedy
Supporter of Death Penalty Focus
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