Recently, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC or Red Cross) has been accused of facilitating payments to accused terrorists captured and held by Israel in the ongoing Hamas-Israel conflict. The ICRC denies this claim. The ICRC has a blemished record, disturbingly far from its professed humanitarian mandate. A journalistic investigation conducted by ProPublica [...]
Search Results for: lethal injections
Georgia to go forward with first execution in more than 4 years after parole board denies clemency
The Georgia Parole Board denied clemency for inmate Willie James Pye on Tuesday, making him soon to be the first inmate executed in the state since 2020. Pye was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996 after the murder of Alicia Lynn Yarbough, with whom he was involved in a relationship. During the clemency meeting [...]
Rethinking 'An Eye for an Eye': A Journey Towards Death Penalty Abolition
At its core, the death penalty feeds one of the basest desires known to humankind: the craving for revenge. The 3,200+ members of “L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty” — a group I co-founded — along with millions of other death penalty abolitionists across the world have demonstrated time and again in recent years how [...]
Class Action Asserts Patient Rights Violated: Genzyme Faces Legal Scrutiny Over Fabry Drug Handling
The US has faced numerous issues involving prescription drugs, especially with rising costs and accessibility of life-saving and required medications. One class action lawsuit (Wilkins et. al. v. Genzyme Corporation (n/k/Sanofi) against Genzyme (now owned by and known as Sanofi, the eighth largest pharmaceutical company in the world) alleges the company intentionally misled patients with [...]
The Unconscionable Nazi Legacies of Executions by Gas and Lethal Injection
Alabama’s experimental use of gas to torture to death Kenneth Smith on January 25th — like all executions by lethal injection — has perpetuated a horrific Nazi legacy in the United States and is a traumatizing affront to many in the Jewish community. The fact that this torment was blindly carried out just ahead of [...]
Alabama executes Kenneth Smith by nitrogen gas after US Supreme Court rejects final appeal
Alabama inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith was executed Thursday night by nitrogen hypoxia after the US Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, declined to intervene in the state’s second attempt to execute an inmate who had previously survived a botched lethal injection. The court’s three liberal justices expressed their willingness to hear Smith’s claims of cruel [...]
Observing Holocaust Remembrance Day on the Heels of Alabama’s Experimental Gassing Execution
I am an ordained Jewish cantor, a former Jewish prison chaplain, a third-generation Holocaust survivor, and co-founder of L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty. I write these words on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and on the morning after Alabama executed Kenneth Eugene Smith with nitrogen gas — the first execution of this [...]
Mengele-Like Logic Underpins Alabama’s Plan to Gas a Man to Death
Barring the unlikely success of last-minute litigation, today, at 6 p.m. CST, Kenneth Eugene Smith is scheduled to become the first person in history to be executed by forced nitrogen gas inhalation. In Smith’s final minutes, personnel at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama will strap an industrial-grade mask to his face. Secured [...]
US Supreme Court and federal appeals court refuse to stay Alabama nitrogen hypoxia execution
The US Supreme Court and Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit on Wednesday refused Kenneth Smith’s application for a stay of his execution by nitrogen hypoxia. Kenneth Smith is scheduled to be executed by way of nitrogen hypoxia on Thursday night at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. According to the Alabama execution [...]
Explainer: US District Court Thwarts Latest Bid to Halt Alabama Nitrogen Hypoxia Execution
A US district court on Wednesday dismissed concerns about Alabama death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith potentially choking on his own vomit during his planned execution by nitrogen hypoxia, a novel and untested method of capital punishment. Smith’s legal team is urgently trying to stop the execution, which is scheduled for Thursday. They argue that [...]