With the stroke of his pen, California Governor Gavin Newsom could have a significant impact on the death penalty across the US. Though Newsom lacks the power to end capital punishment in California, he could take executive action to commute the sentences of the roughly 700 condemned awaiting execution in in the state—a death row figure [...]
In its euthanasia guidelines, the American Veterinary Medical Association advises against the use of nitrogen gas to kill rats. And yet Alabama is pushing ahead with plans to experiment with using the gas to execute its condemned. Even defendants convicted of the cruelest of murders cannot, except for cynically and spitefully, be said to be [...]
In November of 1985, legendary liberal Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. declared, “the fatal constitutional infirmity of capital punishment is that it treats members of the human race as non-humans, as objects to be toyed with and discarded.” With Alabama primed to gas condemned prisoners to death with nitrogen — and with other [...]
The “Texas Lawyer’s Creed” was promulgated by the Supreme Court of Texas and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on November 7, 1989. Established to eliminate abusive tactics within the practice of law, it was thought to be a seminal moment in the legal profession; the culmination of months of hard work and spirited debate [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Stephen Cooper discusses the story of Benny King and the criminalization of addiction... Benny King is a gregarious, good-hearted, God-fearing 53-year-old black man from Alabama who shouldn’t be in prison. But he is. Mr. King...
JURIST Guest Columnist Stephen Cooper discusses Proposition 62...No righteous, freedom-loving Californian believes human beings should be executed for possessing or selling pot. Indeed, we rightly cringe at the megalomaniac entreaties (such as, kill drug dealers and "I'll give you a...
JURIST Guest Columnist Stephen Cooper, a former DC public defender, addresses prosecutor Michele Hanisee's remarks concerning the death penalty in California... Speaking in favor of Proposition 66, the ballot initiative that seeks to speed up executions in California to Texas-like...
JURIST Guest Columnist Stephen Cooper, a former DC public defender discusses how California's Proposition 66 will fail to reform California's fractured death penalty system... "Californians for Death Penalty Savings and Reform"—an advocacy group spearheaded by district attorneys and several family...
