Tuesday, March 19, 2024
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Tags Capital punishment

Tag: capital punishment

The prospective gassing of human beings in Alabama is an abomination

When, in October 2016, I wrote, “Death row inmates in Alabama are human guinea pigs” because the state’s capital punishment regime – specifically its barbaric, often bungled lethal injection protocol – is already so dark, so depraved, so outrageously cloaked in lies and officious secrecy, I never could have predicted the situation could get worse. But it has. Plans are now underway for Alabama to develop a protocol to execute death row prisoners with nitrogen gas.

‘Progressive DA’ Larry Krasner, you said you’d overturn wrongful convictions; what...

Given that Mumia’s next court hearing is on Oct. 29, two weeks away, many of us have felt that not enough attention has been paid to challenging Philadelphia’s widely hailed, new “liberal” District Attorney Larry Krasner. His deadly role in Mumia’s current legal proceedings in the Court of Common Pleas has not been understood by many Mumia supporters. We must pressure him to drop his opposition to Mumia’s current legal action aimed at giving Mumia new rights of appeal of his conviction.

The Death Penalty makes redemption impossible

The public, with its hunger for revenge, does not want to hear about personal acts of atonement by people who have been sentenced for a crime. Acts of atonement by the condemned are usually viewed as a ploy to save his or her own life – not as a genuine act of redemption. People on death row are deemed the lowest of the low. Many people believe death-row prisoners cannot be “reformed” because they are “unformed” as human beings.

Wiping the stain of capital punishment clean

Soon the Supreme Court will decide whether to hear a case with the potential to end this nation’s abominably long and freakish experimentation with the death penalty. That’s right, drum roll, please. Because, if it grants certiorari in Hidalgo v. Arizona – a case Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe describes as emblematic of “the problems with our [country’s] current capital punishment regimes” – America’s broken and vile “machinery of death” can finally be trashed in the junkyard of our dark, wayward humanity. Implore the Supreme Court to wipe capital punishment’s bloody stain away. Forever.

Delaware returns to death penalty debate after prison uprising

Just after 10 a.m. EDT on Feb. 1, a group of inmates took four staff hostage as they seized control of Building C at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in Smyrna, Delaware, with 120 prisoners inside. By the end of the 18-hour standoff, Sgt. Steven Floyd Sr. was dead. Republican Rep. Steve Smyk, who had planned to support a bill to reinstate capital punishment, says he thinks the uprising has given some state lawmakers who initially opposed the death penalty a new outlook.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott is punishing a prosecutor for opposing the...

The top prosecutor in Orlando, Florida, took to a podium outside the Orange County courthouse last week to outline a new policy: Her office would no longer seek the death penalty in any capital case. The prosecutor, State Attorney Aramis Ayala, told assembled reporters that seeking the death penalty is “not in the best interests of this community or in the interest of justice.” Ayala’s decision to stop seeking the death penalty was bound to be controversial. But the announcement has kicked off a fire storm.

Wanda’s Picks for March 2017

At the Women’s March on Washington, Sen. Kamala Harris told constituents, she “had our backs,” and since she has been in office Sen. Harris has certainly been a vocal and active participant in standing up for the constitutional rights for her constituents in California against presidential legislation which undermines core human rights and values. Her track record in providing a safety net for the most vulnerable in our community is unparalleled.

From the front lines in Ferguson: ‘We will go out hard’

They’re like, “Fuck it. I can die out here for nothing going at these cats from the other side or I could die for justice tonight with these police.” They’re fearless – they’re ready to be a martyr. Now all of this money that it must cost to bring all these cops in, ... all y’all had to do was put one man in jail. That’s it! A thousand police officers are going to be here in St. Louis and for what? To go out and kill another unarmed Black kid in the streets and then leave him there for four hours? I think that the ripple effect of this is going to rock the whole nation. It could be the tipping point for race relations in America when it comes to policing.

Criminologists tell Gov. Brown: Negotiate with hunger strikers now before there...

“It is now time to return the control of our prison system to California,” says Gov. Brown. We say it’s time to return California’s criminal justice system to a sense of human dignity and social justice. We call upon the governor and Legislature to immediately sit down at the bargaining table with representatives of the current prison hunger strike and enter into meaningful negotiations before prisoners die or suffer irreparable damage to their health. Stop the political posturing and name-calling, and start negotiating before there is blood on your hands.

It is a matter of innocence, not economics

Please DON’T vote in favor of “The SAFE California Act” to end California’s death penalty. Your vote for this act would throw away the key for all the innocent men and women on death row and, instead, sentence all prisoners on death row to spend the rest of their lives in prison without the possibility of parole and without effective legal representation.

Angela Davis: Stop the execution of Troy Davis, set for Sept....

Angela Davis writes: “I urgently appeal to Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal and to the members of the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole to spare the life of Troy Davis, a young African American citizen of your state. I hope everyone within sight or sound of my words or my voice will likewise urgently call and fax Gov. Neal and the members of the board.” Stand strong on the Global Day of Solidarity for Troy Davis this Friday, Sept. 16, 4-6 p.m., Federal Building, 1301 Clay St., near 12th Street BART, Oakland. Five hundred events will be held around the world.

Elect DeWitt Lacy District 10 Supervisor in San Francisco

I will be your voice at City Hall if you will be my feet on the ground of District 10. Together we can make sure that District 10 finally gets its fair share of affordable housing, quality schools and business opportunities.

The death penalty: What a price to pay

The death penalty. To abolish or not to abolish? The topic has become contentious. As poor and middle class Americans fight to survive the recession, opposition to the death penalty becomes more prevalent.

Wanda’s Picks for May

Shout out to First Lady Michelle Obama, who presented the bust of Queen Mother Sojourner Truth, a woman who experienced first hand the hardships of slavery, yet emerged strong, so strong she had to remind America she too was a woman, a woman deserving all the respect and honor reserved for privileged white women.

Angela Davis tours the nation calling for the abolition of prisons:...

Angela Davis called for a new movement to abolish what she called "the prison-industrial complex" in the U.S., which has become the largest jailer in the world. "Racism is directly responsible for the fact that the U.S. has become the great incarcerator."

Method of execution

I will continue the ardent struggle from the "inside out." As you fight to abolish the death penalty from the "outside in," may we intersect in success!