Michelle Byrom, 57, could be executed later this month for a crime she did not commit. She was charged with hiring her son’s friend to kill her abusive husband. It is clear now that her son killed his abusive father. Read More
After spending 30 years on Louisiana’s death row for a crime he did not commit, Glenn Ford was exonerated and walked free on Tuesday, March 11. Mr. Ford is one of the country’s longest serving death row inmates, and his case exemplifies why, if we speed up the appeals process, we increase the likelihood that an innocent person will be executed. Read More
The Topeka Capital Journal, cjonline.com, yesterday posted a balanced editorial discussing House Bill 2389, a bill in the state legislature that would revise and expedite the appeals process for death penalty cases in Kansas. The editorial came down in opposition to the legislation. Read More
America's community of death row survivors bids a farewell to another one of its own. Gregory R. Wilhoit, who had spent five years on Oklahoma's death row after being wrongfully convicted for the brutal murder of his wife, died in his sleep on February 13. Read More
Best known for sandy beaches, palmettos and warm weather, Florida has a darker side not familiar to those paying homage to Mickey Mouse and the Magic Kingdom. Florida leads the nation in the number of exonerations of death row prisoners due to evidence of wrongful conviction. Read More
The law doesn’t read “guilty until proven innocent.” And yet, since 1973, the United States has released 143 people from death row after they proved their innocence. It’s a totally backwards approach, and sometimes, we don’t get to them fast enough. Troy Davis, Carlos de Luna, Cameron Todd Willingham, and Gary Graham are among those who are widely believed to have been wrongly executed. In all likelihood there are others. Read More
In 2013, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and our many allies and supporters in the death penalty abolition movement celebrated triumphs and learned from our setbacks. This list of important stories from 2013 emphasizes the successes but provides critical reminders of the challenges we still need to overcome. Read More
Delbert Tibbs was sentenced to death in Florida for the murder of Terry Milroy and the rape of his companion, Cynthia Nadeau. He was innocent. Delbert Tibbs was once quoted as saying "God sent me to death row so I could be a witness." Delbert Tibbs died on November 23, 2013. He was 74. Read More
We mourn the passing of Delbert Tibbs, a death penalty abolition activist deeply committed to peace and racial justice. He died on Saturday, November 23, 2013. Read More
Grave Injustice is a highly readable study for anybody interested in a thoughtful, but critical examination of the death penalty in modern America. Stack reveals capital punishment as a broken, largely symbolic relic at odds with the very essence of a pluralistic democracy. Gladly for the reader Stack writes very well. Read More
Starting on the eve of the second anniversary of Troy's execution, the Davis family and Haymarket Books will be holding a series of commemoration events and book signings in collaboration with the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Amnesty International, the NAACP, and Equal Justice USA . The events will be in New York, NY; Decatur, GA; Savannah, GA; Washington DC; Baltimore, MD; Bellingham, WA; and Seattle, WA. Read More
In this video, Kenneth C. Frazier, President and CEO of Merck, speaks at the American Law Institute's 90th Annual Meeting about his role as a death penalty lawyer and the flaws in the judicial system as it relates to capital punishment. Read More
Diann Rust-Tierney discusses the role of innocence on public opinion, educational efforts, the importance of strong political leadership and ways to get involved with the death penalty abolition movement. Read More
For Mark Elliott, Executive Director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP), it was the killing of a Jewish prisoner by the state that put him on the road to abolish capital punishment. Read More
In 2006, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a dissenting opinion that there was not “a single case, not one, in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit.” This assertion outraged many in the death penalty abolition movement whose experience told them otherwise. Read More
In 2010, a 20-20 tie vote in the State Senate stalled the efforts to repeal the death penalty in Kansas. But that hasn’t stopped Kansas! Read More