Death penalty dysfunction in 2015


Crosses mark the graves of inmates in Huntsville, Texas, April 23, 1997. About 1,300 people from the Texas prison system are buried here, among them 200 who died on death row.
By: Liliana Segura
The Intercept

ON DECEMBER 8, the state of Georgia carried out its fifth and final execution of the year, killing 47-year-old Brian Keith Terrell by lethal injection for a 1992 murder. It was a fight over money, the state said. Terrell forged checks belonging to an elderly family friend, then shot the man after he was found out.


Supreme Court Strikes Down Florida's Death Penalty System

By: Nina Totenberg
NPR

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down Florida's death sentencing system as unconstitutional on Tuesday, casting doubt on the status of all the state's death sentences.

Florida ranks second in the nation in the number of death row inmates, with 390 men and women currently awaiting execution.


Defense: New evidence points to victim’s fiance in Reed case


Rodney Reed's parents
By: Jillian Beck
The Austin-American Statesman
Friday, October 30, 2015

Lawyers for a man convicted and sentenced to death for a 1996 Bastrop County murder filed a motion in district court this month saying a previously undisclosed police investigation points to the victim’s fiance as the perpetrator.

Rodney Reed was convicted and sentenced to death in 1998 for the rape and murder of 19-year-old Stacey Stites. Less than two weeks before he was scheduled to be put to death this year, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed his execution based on a new appeal Reed’s attorneys filed in February.


From behind death row's walls


Mumia Abu-Jamal
By: Lily Hughes
Socialist Worker
Friday, November 27, 2015

Lily Hughes, a leading member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, reviews a new collection of essays by political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.


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