Death Penalty // - Tumblr Posts
Get to know Kamala Harris
Supported a law that forced schools to turn undocumented students over to ICE
Laughed about putting parents in jail if their kids missed school, disproportionately harming single parent households, the poor, and families of color. Regrets her decision
Her office refused to address what the Supreme Court calls “unconstitutionally overcrowded” prisons specifically to perpetuate the exploitation of the mass incarcerated for slave labor close to $1/hour (she later claimed she didn’t know her own lawyers argued this.
Declined to prosecute Steven Mnuchin after his bank’s predatory lending and foreclosure fraud broke the law “over a thousand” times and ruined the lives of thousands of homeowners, keeping him free to donate to her campaign and become Trump’s Treasury Secretary
Opposed taking cannabis off DEA’s list of most dangerous substances and literally laughing at the idea of legalizing it multiple times, even as her Republican opponent ran to the left of her on the issue. She then tried to pander by admitting to smoking herself despite prosecuting others, but got her story all wrong
Used a technicality to stop the release of a man serving 27 years-to-life after being wrongfully convicted of possession of a knife under the three-strikes law she supported. When civil rights groups and nearly 100,000 petition signatures got him released after 14 years she took him back to court again for a crime he didn’t commit
Opposed reforming California’s three-strikes law, which is the only one in the country to impose life sentences for minor felonies and incarcerates black people at 12x the rate as white people, three different times, even while her Republican opponent supported reform
Appealed a judge ruling that the death penalty was unconstitutional and won on a technicality, resulting in continued executions
When evidence pointed towards a black defendant being framed by police, Harris avoided DNA testing to keep him on death row
Protected serial child rapists by refusing to prosecute in the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal
Lied about her state’s solitary confinement to block a suit by inmates, claiming there was none in California when there were about 6,400 victims of the practice, which is considered torture
Oversaw a state prosecutor falsifying a confession to get a life sentence and then destroyed the evidence, upheld a conviction secured by a prosecutor lying under oath, and oversaw the framing of another man
Opposed legislation that would require independent investigation of fatal police shootings despite criticism from many civil rights advocates including California’s Legislative Black Caucus
Opposed statewide implementation of police body cameras and ignored police brutality, multiple officers raping a teenager, and other officers sharing racist and homophobic messages, despite multiple requests from the public defender
Refused to hand over the names of police whose testimonies led to convictions despite the officers’ arrest records and past misconduct
Tried to deny a transgender inmate healthcare and endangered trans women by forcing them into mens prisons, leading to the rape and torture of at least one trans inmate
Stood by silently as $730 million was spent on moving inmates to for-profit private prisons
Delayed the confiscation of illegal firearms from dangerous people, then posed a “continued risk to public safety” by failing to implement changes state auditors recommended to fix this despite receiving $24 million specifically for this purpose
Voted two different times to block federal funding for abortions
Following the foreclosure fraud scandal she negotiated a deal great for banks but bad for the ruined homeowners, becoming one of Wall Street’s favorite candidates to fundraise for
Voted to give Trump increased military spending two different times.
Supports Trump escalating war in Syria
Co-sponsored the bill that let Trump impose sanctions on Iran which violated the nuclear deal and lead to the currently rising tensions
“Systematically violated defendants’ civil and constitutional rights” in crime lab scandal
Kept her Orange County DA office from being charged for running an unconstitutional jailhouse informant program they tried to cover up.
Oversaw San Francisco’s felony conviction rate rising from 52% to 67% in only 3 years
As part of her tough on crime approach she assigned senior prosecutors to misdemeanors like graffiti and vandalism, tripling the number of cases brought to trial
Dismisses the plea to “build more schools, less jails” as “good in theory” but law enforcement is essential to public safety
Supports the controversial DNA search technique that can be used on people even if they’ve not been charged with a crime
Only recently (2016) did she oppose the discriminatory practice of cash bail in court
Supports Israel’s right-wing government and cozies up to AIPAC, co-sponsored resolution against Obama in support of illegal settlements, does not support Palestinian rights, and calls BDS “anti-semitic”
Sponsored a bill allowing for prosecutors to seize profits before charges are even filed and opposed a bill that would reform civil asset forfeiture
Defended a prison’s religious discrimination in hiring policy
Worked on behalf of then-CA governor Jerry Brown to oppose tribal land-into-trust applications and tried to take reservation land away from a tribe just to keep them from evicting a non-indigenous man who had lived there without paying rent for 24 years
Refused to review a case in which a pharmaceutical CEO killed his wife but made it look like a suicide after their son died under mysterious circumstances as well
Refused to prosecute PG&E for its massive gas pipeline explosion and its consultants are ran her campaign
Did not properly investigate the San Onofre scandal to protect her political allies
Refused to investigate Herbalife’s exploitation and fraud, receiving donations from people connected to the corporation
Opposed legalization of sex work, endangered sex workers
Supported legislation that increased the homeless sex offender population 24x in 3 years, then appealed a court’s ruling that it was unconstitutional. Her Republican opponent ran to the left of her on this issue
Accepted thousands of dollars of campaign funds from Donald and Ivanka Trump multiple times
Accepted donations from prominent charter school pusher and billionaire Reed Hastings
The Loggerhead Shrike brutally silences political dissidents by means of public impalement before dismembering and ultimately consuming those who would dare attempt to change the status quo. Above, a grasshopper’s head and spine are removed from its freshly-impaled body for suggesting perhaps there should be fewer impalements.
This time should've been completely insignificant. Yet here we are forever remembering that with the natural process of birth and death there was a life which was unnaturally and mercilessly taken. Justice was suspended at 11:08 pm. Troy Davis was a victim of an unjust system. So was Mark Allen Macphail. Both lost their lives Neither received justice.
Yang Hengjun turned his back on the Communist Party and became an Australian - now China has sentenced him to death
There is great excitement in Australia. What did the naturalised author do to deserve the capital punishment in the eyes of China's rulers?
Patrick Zoll, Taipei 05.02.2024, NZZ
Australian Yang Hengjun, who was sentenced to death in China, in an undated photo with his wife Yuan Xiaoliang.
Australian Yang Hengjun, who was sentenced to death in China, in an undated photo with his wife Yuan Xiaoliang.
After five years in isolation in pre-trial detention, Australian author Yang Hengjun has been sentenced to death in China. The sentence will be commuted to "life imprisonment" if Yang does not commit any offences for a further two years. As Yang's health has recently deteriorated massively in prison, according to Australian reports, he will probably die in prison.
The Chinese judiciary has never announced in detail what it is accusing Yang of, nor has it provided any evidence. On Monday, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing said, according to the Reuters news agency, that Yang had been convicted of espionage. All necessary procedures had been followed and "the Australian side" had attended the sentencing. What exactly this means remains unclear - Australian diplomats have repeatedly complained that they have hardly any access to Yang.
From Chinese functionary to democracy blogger
Yang emigrated to Australia in 1999. He had previously worked for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and State Security. He studied in Sydney, wrote a doctoral thesis on the influence of bloggers on a possible democratisation of China and became a blogger himself. "Yang gave up his career as a communist cadre member to work for freedom and democracy," the Australian newspaper "Sydney Morning Herald" quoted Feng Chongyi, Yang's doctoral supervisor, as saying. Yang obtained Australian citizenship in 2002.
In 2019, Yang was arrested at Guangzhou airport when he travelled from the USA with his wife. At the time, he also held an academic position at Columbia University and was involved in the import-export business between China and the USA.
In captivity, Yang is said to have been repeatedly tortured and held incommunicado. He was tried behind closed doors in 2021.
There is a lot of excitement in Australia following the harsh judgement for Yang. Foreign Minister Penny Wong wrote that her government was outraged. All Australians wanted Yang to be reunited with his family. They will continue to stand up for him. However, Wong is probably aware that she has little room for manoeuvre.
The judgement comes at a delicate time in Australian-Chinese relations. These have only slowly begun to ease in recent months after years of ice age. The close trading partners found themselves in a serious diplomatic crisis. Australia accused China of interfering in and influencing Australian politics. During the coronavirus pandemic, Australia then demanded an investigation into the cause of the outbreak, which angered China's rulers so much that they imposed several punitive measures against Australian products.
The communist regime severely punishes "treason"
In November, Anthony Albanese became the first Australian Prime Minister in seven years to visit Beijing. Shortly before this, the Chinese government released the Australian journalist Cheng Lei. Like Yang, she was born Chinese and later obtained Australian citizenship. Cheng worked for the Chinese state broadcaster CGTN and was arrested, allegedly because she had ignored an embargo period. She was held for more than two years, but was never convicted.
Hopes at the time that Yang would soon be released did not materialise. On the contrary: the conditional death sentence exceeded the fears of most of his supporters. The 57-year-old's real "crime" was probably that he had turned his back on China and the Communist Party as a former member of the party cadre. In the eyes of those in power, this is treason and should be severely punished.
In Australia, Yang's harsh punishment is also seen in a political light. The director of the think tank Australia Strategic Policy Institute, Justin Bassi, described the judgement to the Sydney Morning Herald as hostage diplomacy. Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham told the public broadcaster ABC that the death sentence was a warning of the differences between Australia's and China's legal systems and the risks involved in doing business and maintaining contacts with China.
The West should finally understand that XI will not tolerate any resistance or criticism from the Chinese Communist Party, and if they do not retaliate today, they will retaliate at some point, without mercy or humanity.
The West must take advantage of China's weaknesses and exploit its dependence on China and the ultimate prosperity of the Chinese people.
In order to live in peace with China, the following must be realised.
China's business enterprises (mostly dependent on the CKP) cannot acquire shares in systemically relevant companies and infrastructure in Europe, nor in agricultural enterprises. Without exception, not even in the form of straw companies.
China's weakness is its size and the fact that ultimately China's land cannot feed the Chinese people sufficiently, which in turn means that the CP, which always emphasises that it and the people are one, must provide the people with food and quality of life. For better or worse! China has a large area, but this area is not exactly fertile.
Europe has the ability to supply China with the food China needs, but it should always understand that this is exactly the trump card to stop China.
Europe must also secure its supply routes and not be intimidated by China's behaviour in terms of exerting influence. Europe is China's sales market and if we get the sniffles, China is sick!
Mark Aurel more or less
According to the motto divide and conquer, keep a watchful eye on China because everything China does is part of a plan. They punish to negotiate, they smile to negotiate but always in the interest of the CKP and thus XI's plans.
No blogger is safe from dictatorships! Only democracy and freedom guarantee freedom of expression and thus participation in an open society. Someone should be persecuted because of their thoughts, opinions, ethnicity or sexual orientation.
A nation in which everyone is equal agrees on common rules of coexistence for the benefit of all.
Freedom is non-negotiable, human rights are non-negotiable.
Justice is when everyone is treated equally, publicly and transparently.
Everything else is injustice, there is no right in wrong!
A woman is going to be wrongfully executed next month for a crime she did not commit. Her case was used as a political ploy, and a false confession was produced by gross police misconduct.
Her name is Melissa Lucio and she’s going to die this April.
Sign the petition and learn more here->
https://innocenceproject.org/petitions/stop-execution-of-innocent-melissa-lucio-texas/?p2asource=sumo_01282022
Iran is currently sentencing kids, as young as 9, to death. This MUST stop now. Click here to read more.
Here are 10 more reasons to abolish the death penalty.
Some of you are literally watching the right wing continuously try to expand the definition of "pedophilia" to include "existing around a child while queer," and then agreeing with them when they say pedophiles deserve to be summarily executed.
Not only does this place innocent people in danger of political executions, it also puts children in danger, as most children who are sexually abused have this done by someone close to them, and feelings that they would be responsible for the death of their abuser if they reported leads to lower rates of reporting. It also leads to higher rates of abusers murdering their victims when they're found out because the punishment will be the same anyway.
Part of being on the left is realizing that it's better to let 100 guilty men go free than to wrongly convict one. Another part of being on the left is realizing that one's life is never something others have the right to take away- even the most evil people alive. Yes, that includes mass murderers and rapists and pedophiles. Once you make one group acceptable to kill, you give others a vested interest in defining groups they have prejudice against into that group.
You have to start dealing with the fact that no crime makes one's life forfeit. Not even the worst most depraved and sadistic acts. The worst people alive have rights, and if you can't accept that they deserve them, at least try to accept that it is to your benefit that they retain rights no matter what they're accused of. And if you can't do even that, well... you just might be the kind of person who would cut off your nose to spite your face.
If you want to protect victims, if you want to protect minority groups, you have to realize that sex crimes, or any crimes at all, do not deserve the death penalty. Period.
The violence between individuals is different than violence of the state against individuals. Self-defence is not the same fucking thing as the death penalty and you should know that. The point is that the state should never have that kind of power over people because often, as you demonstrate here, the right, and moreover the being in the right of this, is often unquestioned when it comes to state action. The majority of people will believe state action is justified simply because it is the state. This power WILL be abused. This abuse WILL go unquestioned. I think you can see why this is a bad idea.
Every time a verdict is handed down on some horrible killer a bunch of armchairs jurors flip out about how he deserved the death penalty. Wait til I tell u that death penalty should be abolished entirely because the state does not have the right to kill people, ever, no matter who they are. People do not have the right to kill other people and the death penalty grants state officials this right based purely on power. Anyway, ask yourself who benefits from the death penalty. When a person has caused grievous harm there is no way to undo that harm. Their death doesn’t undo it— that is what is so tragic about hurting other people. No amount of suffering they experience will change what they did. The families of the victims will grieve no matter what. If it’s for their benefit, ask yourself: if someone badly harms me or someone I love, does that give me the right to see them die? At what point do I get to decide who lives and who dies?
Hi, hello, thank you for this incredibly condescending sandwich you’ve just served me. I do so love the stink of pretentiousness in the morning!
First off, yes, I do agree with everything OP says. The fact that I do is not the slam-dunk you seem to think it is. Also, what mental lifting must be done to understand the statements they’ve made? Unless, like the vast majority of people on this site, your reading comprehension was stuck in the fifth grade. If you, an adult, can’t understand a relatively simple paragraph, I despair for you.
Your primary defence of the death penalty is that the state has the right to kill because an individual has the right to kill, and the individual has the right to kill in the case of self-defence. I fail to understand how you made the leap that the state is a person, and therefore has the same rights as a person. The state is not a being, it is not sentient. There are no rights a state can have. Rights are assigned to human beings, and the state is not a human being. In this case, killing is a /power/. States have powers, they do not have rights. Ergo, the question is, should the state have the power to kill people? Moreover, you say that the individual has a right to kill in self-defence. I will extrapolate that you mean this is the /only/ acceptable reason for the killing of another human. If this is true...the state has no business killing the offender. The offence is not being committed against the state, it is being committed against the victim. The event is over and done with. Killing in self-defence, or justifiable homicide, is something that cannot be done /after/ the fact. Once the victim is dead, there is no self-defence to be enacted.
There are two methods of dealing with criminals. Punishment for the crime, or preventing a repeat offence. In our current society, prison is used for these dual purposes. If a murderer is incarcerated, they won’t be reoffending. You say that the state needs to kill these people so that they can’t reoffend. But if you can't even trust the state to keep them incarcerated, I fail to see why would you trust the state with the power over life and death. 1 in 8 death row inmates are exonerated. ONE in EIGHT! As well, as many as FOUR PERCENT of death row victims may be innocent! Why would you take that chance?! If there is the slightest possibility that even ONE person may be innocent, WHY IN FUCK would you KILL them? What you’re advocating for is murder! Prisoners can always be released. Reparations can be made. Unless you’ve found some way of practicing necromancy, the death penalty cannot be reversed.
The death penalty is a hallmark of punitive justice. It is literally called “capital PUNISHMENT.” It is defined as “death as punishment for a crime.” And once again, state-sanctioned murder is not self-defence. Self-defence, by definition, can only be enacted by the victim of a crime. Also by definition, the death penalty is a revenge killing. Your argument falls flat. If self-defence is the only acceptable reason for killing, then why would you endorse revenge killing? The two are contradictory. If the state was ever put to trial, the death penalty would never, EVER, be ruled a justifiable homicide. The death penalty is punishment, pure and simple. It is revenge. It is not justice, it is not righteous, and it is, most definitely, NOT self-defence. There are other ways of keeping criminals contained. From reoffending. If your only method of preventing recidivism is by murdering its own citizens, that is a societal failure.
For your information, I do live in a country where the death penalty is illegal. I don’t know about you, but we consider this a sign of how civilized and humane we are. And you, living in America, support the death penalty? Really? With its history? You say you’ve made it your life’s work to question its application...so why are you supporting it so vehemently? The society you’ve proposed where we can trust the state without a shadow of doubt to properly exercise the power over life and death is either nonexistent or a very, very long time away. There is no government in the world right that can be trusted with the death penalty. There will not be for a very, very long time, possibly never. So why do you fight so hard for its acceptance right now? Is the right of the state to murder people so important to you? Hmmm....
Every time a verdict is handed down on some horrible killer a bunch of armchairs jurors flip out about how he deserved the death penalty. Wait til I tell u that death penalty should be abolished entirely because the state does not have the right to kill people, ever, no matter who they are. People do not have the right to kill other people and the death penalty grants state officials this right based purely on power. Anyway, ask yourself who benefits from the death penalty. When a person has caused grievous harm there is no way to undo that harm. Their death doesn’t undo it— that is what is so tragic about hurting other people. No amount of suffering they experience will change what they did. The families of the victims will grieve no matter what. If it’s for their benefit, ask yourself: if someone badly harms me or someone I love, does that give me the right to see them die? At what point do I get to decide who lives and who dies?
While racial discrimination in jury selection is present throughout the criminal legal system, the report finds that it has especially pernicious effects in capital trials. “In cases where the death penalty is a possible punishment, the absence of meaningful representation on juries shapes sentencing outcomes, making them less reliable and credible,” the report explains. “The effect is greatest for non-white defendants, as studies show that less representative juries convict and sentence Black defendants to death at significantly higher rates than white defendants. White jurors are also less likely to consider critical mitigating evidence supporting a life sentence, rather than the death penalty, for Black defendants.”
EJI says illegal jury discrimination “persists because those who perpetrate or tolerate racial bias—including trial and appellate courts, defense lawyers, lawmakers, and prosecutors—act with impunity. Courts that fail to create jury lists that fairly represent their communities face no repercussions. Prosecutors who unlawfully strike Black people from juries don’t get fined, sanctioned, or held accountable.”
To redress the problem, EJI recommends that courts and legislatures remove procedural barriers to reviewing claims of jury discrimination, adopt policies and practices that commit to fully representative jury pools, hold accountable decision makers who engage in racially discriminatory jury selection practices, and strengthen the standard of review of jury discrimination claims. However, EJI says, only a few states “have recognized the problem and implemented reforms or initiated studies” and “most states have done nothing.”
Jury Discrimination in Death Penalty Cases
The report examines the U.S. Supreme Court’s historical “indifference to the rampant and illegal exclusion of Black people from juries” in cases in which Black defendants were sentenced to death. The Court has “repeatedly deferred to state court decisions finding no discrimination and rejected complaints about racially biased jury selection” in these cases, EJI found.
The Court’s tolerance for blatant discrimination was evident from its rulings in several Texas death-penalty cases in the early 1900s, the report says. The report notes that “the Supreme Court found that no illegal racial discrimination had occurred” despite “the total exclusion of African Americans from jury service in multiple cases where an all-white jury sentenced a Black man to death in a Texas county where African Americans comprised 25% of the population” and “even though not one Black person appeared on a jury in any of these capital cases.”
It took until 1935, in the case of the Scottsboro Boys, for the Court to intervene. In that case, nine Black teenagers were falsely charged with raping two white women in Scottsboro, Alabama, and were tried and convicted by an all-white jury. “No African American had served on a jury in Scottsboro in living memory.” Yet in 2020, the Supreme Court faced a Mississippi case with striking similarities: Curtis Flowers, an innocent Black man charged with a quadruple murder in a white-owned store in which he had previously been employed, was tried six times, with four death sentences and two mistrials, by a prosecutor whose office struck Black jurors at 4.5 times the rate that it struck white jurors. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that District Attorney Doug Evans’ “relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals strongly suggests that the State wanted to try Flowers before a jury with as few black jurors as possible, and ideally before an all-white jury.”
The report also highlights the capital trials of Johnny Lee Gates and Glenn Ford, innocent Black men convicted and sentenced to death by all-white juries in Georgia and Louisiana in the 1970s. Gates was charged with robbing, raping, and murdering a white woman. Evidence from seven capital trials involving Gates’ prosecutors showed they carefully tracked the race of jurors, struck every Black juror they could, and repeatedly wrote derogatory comments about Black prospective jurors. His all-white jury deliberated for less than two hours before convicting him and took less than an hour to impose the death penalty, EJI said.
In 2018, DNA testing showed Gates was not the killer. After his conviction was overturned, he entered a no-contest plea in 2020 to secure his immediate release after 43 years in prison, 26 of which were spent on death row.
Ford was convicted and sentenced to death for the robbery and murder of a white man in Shreveport, Louisiana, despite the absence of any physical evidence linking him to the crime. He was represented by a lawyer who had never tried a case before a jury. His all-white jury deliberated less than three hours before convicting him. Ford’s prosecutor later admitted to having intentionally struck all Black prospective jurors in the case. Ford was exonerated in 2014 after 29 years on death row.
The Need for Representative Juries
“When juries represent a fair cross-section of the community,” the EJI report says, “the reliability and accuracy of criminal trials are improved and the integrity of the entire legal system is upheld.” Representative juries, the report explains, “are especially important because Black people are underrepresented in prosecutors’ offices and in the judiciary. More than 40% of Americans are people of color, but 95% of elected prosecutors are white. Similar disparities exist within the judiciary.”
Ending the exclusion of Black jurors also helps balance the viewpoints of the otherwise overwhelmingly white decision-makers in a case. “The absence of Black representation means that decisions about who to arrest, which crimes to prosecute, and how to punish people are made primarily by individuals who have less experience contending with racial bias,” the report notes.
The historical exclusion of Black jurors from service in criminal trial has perpetuated two parallel failures of the criminal legal system, EJI says: little or no punishment for white defendants accused of crimes against Black victims, and high conviction rates and harsh punishments for Black defendants accused of crimes against white victims. “[P]erpetrators of racial violence, terrorism, and exploitation of disfavored groups have escaped accountability because their criminal behavior has been ignored by all-white juries,” the report states. Quoting a Louisiana newspaper from the late nineteenth century, the report highlights a second impact of jury discrimination: all-white “juries … seem to think that it is their bounden duty to render a verdict of ‘guilty as charged,’ because the accused has black skin.”
👉🏿 https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/equal-justice-initiative-releases-report-on-racial-discrimination-in-jury-selection
👉🏿 https://today.duke.edu/2012/04/jurystudy
While racial discrimination in jury selection is present throughout the criminal legal system, the report finds that it has especially pernicious effects in capital trials. “In cases where the death penalty is a possible punishment, the absence of meaningful representation on juries shapes sentencing outcomes, making them less reliable and credible,” the report explains. “The effect is greatest for non-white defendants, as studies show that less representative juries convict and sentence Black defendants to death at significantly higher rates than white defendants. White jurors are also less likely to consider critical mitigating evidence supporting a life sentence, rather than the death penalty, for Black defendants.”
EJI says illegal jury discrimination “persists because those who perpetrate or tolerate racial bias—including trial and appellate courts, defense lawyers, lawmakers, and prosecutors—act with impunity. Courts that fail to create jury lists that fairly represent their communities face no repercussions. Prosecutors who unlawfully strike Black people from juries don’t get fined, sanctioned, or held accountable.”
To redress the problem, EJI recommends that courts and legislatures remove procedural barriers to reviewing claims of jury discrimination, adopt policies and practices that commit to fully representative jury pools, hold accountable decision makers who engage in racially discriminatory jury selection practices, and strengthen the standard of review of jury discrimination claims. However, EJI says, only a few states “have recognized the problem and implemented reforms or initiated studies” and “most states have done nothing.”
Jury Discrimination in Death Penalty Cases
The report examines the U.S. Supreme Court’s historical “indifference to the rampant and illegal exclusion of Black people from juries” in cases in which Black defendants were sentenced to death. The Court has “repeatedly deferred to state court decisions finding no discrimination and rejected complaints about racially biased jury selection” in these cases, EJI found.
The Court’s tolerance for blatant discrimination was evident from its rulings in several Texas death-penalty cases in the early 1900s, the report says. The report notes that “the Supreme Court found that no illegal racial discrimination had occurred” despite “the total exclusion of African Americans from jury service in multiple cases where an all-white jury sentenced a Black man to death in a Texas county where African Americans comprised 25% of the population” and “even though not one Black person appeared on a jury in any of these capital cases.”
It took until 1935, in the case of the Scottsboro Boys, for the Court to intervene. In that case, nine Black teenagers were falsely charged with raping two white women in Scottsboro, Alabama, and were tried and convicted by an all-white jury. “No African American had served on a jury in Scottsboro in living memory.” Yet in 2020, the Supreme Court faced a Mississippi case with striking similarities: Curtis Flowers, an innocent Black man charged with a quadruple murder in a white-owned store in which he had previously been employed, was tried six times, with four death sentences and two mistrials, by a prosecutor whose office struck Black jurors at 4.5 times the rate that it struck white jurors. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that District Attorney Doug Evans’ “relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals strongly suggests that the State wanted to try Flowers before a jury with as few black jurors as possible, and ideally before an all-white jury.”
The report also highlights the capital trials of Johnny Lee Gates and Glenn Ford, innocent Black men convicted and sentenced to death by all-white juries in Georgia and Louisiana in the 1970s. Gates was charged with robbing, raping, and murdering a white woman. Evidence from seven capital trials involving Gates’ prosecutors showed they carefully tracked the race of jurors, struck every Black juror they could, and repeatedly wrote derogatory comments about Black prospective jurors. His all-white jury deliberated for less than two hours before convicting him and took less than an hour to impose the death penalty, EJI said.
In 2018, DNA testing showed Gates was not the killer. After his conviction was overturned, he entered a no-contest plea in 2020 to secure his immediate release after 43 years in prison, 26 of which were spent on death row.
Ford was convicted and sentenced to death for the robbery and murder of a white man in Shreveport, Louisiana, despite the absence of any physical evidence linking him to the crime. He was represented by a lawyer who had never tried a case before a jury. His all-white jury deliberated less than three hours before convicting him. Ford’s prosecutor later admitted to having intentionally struck all Black prospective jurors in the case. Ford was exonerated in 2014 after 29 years on death row.
The Need for Representative Juries
“When juries represent a fair cross-section of the community,” the EJI report says, “the reliability and accuracy of criminal trials are improved and the integrity of the entire legal system is upheld.” Representative juries, the report explains, “are especially important because Black people are underrepresented in prosecutors’ offices and in the judiciary. More than 40% of Americans are people of color, but 95% of elected prosecutors are white. Similar disparities exist within the judiciary.”
Ending the exclusion of Black jurors also helps balance the viewpoints of the otherwise overwhelmingly white decision-makers in a case. “The absence of Black representation means that decisions about who to arrest, which crimes to prosecute, and how to punish people are made primarily by individuals who have less experience contending with racial bias,” the report notes.
The historical exclusion of Black jurors from service in criminal trial has perpetuated two parallel failures of the criminal legal system, EJI says: little or no punishment for white defendants accused of crimes against Black victims, and high conviction rates and harsh punishments for Black defendants accused of crimes against white victims. “[P]erpetrators of racial violence, terrorism, and exploitation of disfavored groups have escaped accountability because their criminal behavior has been ignored by all-white juries,” the report states. Quoting a Louisiana newspaper from the late nineteenth century, the report highlights a second impact of jury discrimination: all-white “juries … seem to think that it is their bounden duty to render a verdict of ‘guilty as charged,’ because the accused has black skin.”
👉🏿 https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/equal-justice-initiative-releases-report-on-racial-discrimination-in-jury-selection
👉🏿 https://today.duke.edu/2012/04/jurystudy
While racial discrimination in jury selection is present throughout the criminal legal system, the report finds that it has especially pernicious effects in capital trials. “In cases where the death penalty is a possible punishment, the absence of meaningful representation on juries shapes sentencing outcomes, making them less reliable and credible,” the report explains. “The effect is greatest for non-white defendants, as studies show that less representative juries convict and sentence Black defendants to death at significantly higher rates than white defendants. White jurors are also less likely to consider critical mitigating evidence supporting a life sentence, rather than the death penalty, for Black defendants.”
EJI says illegal jury discrimination “persists because those who perpetrate or tolerate racial bias—including trial and appellate courts, defense lawyers, lawmakers, and prosecutors—act with impunity. Courts that fail to create jury lists that fairly represent their communities face no repercussions. Prosecutors who unlawfully strike Black people from juries don’t get fined, sanctioned, or held accountable.”
To redress the problem, EJI recommends that courts and legislatures remove procedural barriers to reviewing claims of jury discrimination, adopt policies and practices that commit to fully representative jury pools, hold accountable decision makers who engage in racially discriminatory jury selection practices, and strengthen the standard of review of jury discrimination claims. However, EJI says, only a few states “have recognized the problem and implemented reforms or initiated studies” and “most states have done nothing.”
Jury Discrimination in Death Penalty Cases
The report examines the U.S. Supreme Court’s historical “indifference to the rampant and illegal exclusion of Black people from juries” in cases in which Black defendants were sentenced to death. The Court has “repeatedly deferred to state court decisions finding no discrimination and rejected complaints about racially biased jury selection” in these cases, EJI found.
The Court’s tolerance for blatant discrimination was evident from its rulings in several Texas death-penalty cases in the early 1900s, the report says. The report notes that “the Supreme Court found that no illegal racial discrimination had occurred” despite “the total exclusion of African Americans from jury service in multiple cases where an all-white jury sentenced a Black man to death in a Texas county where African Americans comprised 25% of the population” and “even though not one Black person appeared on a jury in any of these capital cases.”
It took until 1935, in the case of the Scottsboro Boys, for the Court to intervene. In that case, nine Black teenagers were falsely charged with raping two white women in Scottsboro, Alabama, and were tried and convicted by an all-white jury. “No African American had served on a jury in Scottsboro in living memory.” Yet in 2020, the Supreme Court faced a Mississippi case with striking similarities: Curtis Flowers, an innocent Black man charged with a quadruple murder in a white-owned store in which he had previously been employed, was tried six times, with four death sentences and two mistrials, by a prosecutor whose office struck Black jurors at 4.5 times the rate that it struck white jurors. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that District Attorney Doug Evans’ “relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals strongly suggests that the State wanted to try Flowers before a jury with as few black jurors as possible, and ideally before an all-white jury.”
The report also highlights the capital trials of Johnny Lee Gates and Glenn Ford, innocent Black men convicted and sentenced to death by all-white juries in Georgia and Louisiana in the 1970s. Gates was charged with robbing, raping, and murdering a white woman. Evidence from seven capital trials involving Gates’ prosecutors showed they carefully tracked the race of jurors, struck every Black juror they could, and repeatedly wrote derogatory comments about Black prospective jurors. His all-white jury deliberated for less than two hours before convicting him and took less than an hour to impose the death penalty, EJI said.
In 2018, DNA testing showed Gates was not the killer. After his conviction was overturned, he entered a no-contest plea in 2020 to secure his immediate release after 43 years in prison, 26 of which were spent on death row.
Ford was convicted and sentenced to death for the robbery and murder of a white man in Shreveport, Louisiana, despite the absence of any physical evidence linking him to the crime. He was represented by a lawyer who had never tried a case before a jury. His all-white jury deliberated less than three hours before convicting him. Ford’s prosecutor later admitted to having intentionally struck all Black prospective jurors in the case. Ford was exonerated in 2014 after 29 years on death row.
The Need for Representative Juries
“When juries represent a fair cross-section of the community,” the EJI report says, “the reliability and accuracy of criminal trials are improved and the integrity of the entire legal system is upheld.” Representative juries, the report explains, “are especially important because Black people are underrepresented in prosecutors’ offices and in the judiciary. More than 40% of Americans are people of color, but 95% of elected prosecutors are white. Similar disparities exist within the judiciary.”
Ending the exclusion of Black jurors also helps balance the viewpoints of the otherwise overwhelmingly white decision-makers in a case. “The absence of Black representation means that decisions about who to arrest, which crimes to prosecute, and how to punish people are made primarily by individuals who have less experience contending with racial bias,” the report notes.
The historical exclusion of Black jurors from service in criminal trial has perpetuated two parallel failures of the criminal legal system, EJI says: little or no punishment for white defendants accused of crimes against Black victims, and high conviction rates and harsh punishments for Black defendants accused of crimes against white victims. “[P]erpetrators of racial violence, terrorism, and exploitation of disfavored groups have escaped accountability because their criminal behavior has been ignored by all-white juries,” the report states. Quoting a Louisiana newspaper from the late nineteenth century, the report highlights a second impact of jury discrimination: all-white “juries … seem to think that it is their bounden duty to render a verdict of ‘guilty as charged,’ because the accused has black skin.”
👉🏿 https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/equal-justice-initiative-releases-report-on-racial-discrimination-in-jury-selection
👉🏿 https://today.duke.edu/2012/04/jurystudy
While racial discrimination in jury selection is present throughout the criminal legal system, the report finds that it has especially pernicious effects in capital trials. “In cases where the death penalty is a possible punishment, the absence of meaningful representation on juries shapes sentencing outcomes, making them less reliable and credible,” the report explains. “The effect is greatest for non-white defendants, as studies show that less representative juries convict and sentence Black defendants to death at significantly higher rates than white defendants. White jurors are also less likely to consider critical mitigating evidence supporting a life sentence, rather than the death penalty, for Black defendants.”
EJI says illegal jury discrimination “persists because those who perpetrate or tolerate racial bias—including trial and appellate courts, defense lawyers, lawmakers, and prosecutors—act with impunity. Courts that fail to create jury lists that fairly represent their communities face no repercussions. Prosecutors who unlawfully strike Black people from juries don’t get fined, sanctioned, or held accountable.”
To redress the problem, EJI recommends that courts and legislatures remove procedural barriers to reviewing claims of jury discrimination, adopt policies and practices that commit to fully representative jury pools, hold accountable decision makers who engage in racially discriminatory jury selection practices, and strengthen the standard of review of jury discrimination claims. However, EJI says, only a few states “have recognized the problem and implemented reforms or initiated studies” and “most states have done nothing.”
Jury Discrimination in Death Penalty Cases
The report examines the U.S. Supreme Court’s historical “indifference to the rampant and illegal exclusion of Black people from juries” in cases in which Black defendants were sentenced to death. The Court has “repeatedly deferred to state court decisions finding no discrimination and rejected complaints about racially biased jury selection” in these cases, EJI found.
The Court’s tolerance for blatant discrimination was evident from its rulings in several Texas death-penalty cases in the early 1900s, the report says. The report notes that “the Supreme Court found that no illegal racial discrimination had occurred” despite “the total exclusion of African Americans from jury service in multiple cases where an all-white jury sentenced a Black man to death in a Texas county where African Americans comprised 25% of the population” and “even though not one Black person appeared on a jury in any of these capital cases.”
It took until 1935, in the case of the Scottsboro Boys, for the Court to intervene. In that case, nine Black teenagers were falsely charged with raping two white women in Scottsboro, Alabama, and were tried and convicted by an all-white jury. “No African American had served on a jury in Scottsboro in living memory.” Yet in 2020, the Supreme Court faced a Mississippi case with striking similarities: Curtis Flowers, an innocent Black man charged with a quadruple murder in a white-owned store in which he had previously been employed, was tried six times, with four death sentences and two mistrials, by a prosecutor whose office struck Black jurors at 4.5 times the rate that it struck white jurors. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that District Attorney Doug Evans’ “relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals strongly suggests that the State wanted to try Flowers before a jury with as few black jurors as possible, and ideally before an all-white jury.”
The report also highlights the capital trials of Johnny Lee Gates and Glenn Ford, innocent Black men convicted and sentenced to death by all-white juries in Georgia and Louisiana in the 1970s. Gates was charged with robbing, raping, and murdering a white woman. Evidence from seven capital trials involving Gates’ prosecutors showed they carefully tracked the race of jurors, struck every Black juror they could, and repeatedly wrote derogatory comments about Black prospective jurors. His all-white jury deliberated for less than two hours before convicting him and took less than an hour to impose the death penalty, EJI said.
In 2018, DNA testing showed Gates was not the killer. After his conviction was overturned, he entered a no-contest plea in 2020 to secure his immediate release after 43 years in prison, 26 of which were spent on death row.
Ford was convicted and sentenced to death for the robbery and murder of a white man in Shreveport, Louisiana, despite the absence of any physical evidence linking him to the crime. He was represented by a lawyer who had never tried a case before a jury. His all-white jury deliberated less than three hours before convicting him. Ford’s prosecutor later admitted to having intentionally struck all Black prospective jurors in the case. Ford was exonerated in 2014 after 29 years on death row.
The Need for Representative Juries
“When juries represent a fair cross-section of the community,” the EJI report says, “the reliability and accuracy of criminal trials are improved and the integrity of the entire legal system is upheld.” Representative juries, the report explains, “are especially important because Black people are underrepresented in prosecutors’ offices and in the judiciary. More than 40% of Americans are people of color, but 95% of elected prosecutors are white. Similar disparities exist within the judiciary.”
Ending the exclusion of Black jurors also helps balance the viewpoints of the otherwise overwhelmingly white decision-makers in a case. “The absence of Black representation means that decisions about who to arrest, which crimes to prosecute, and how to punish people are made primarily by individuals who have less experience contending with racial bias,” the report notes.
The historical exclusion of Black jurors from service in criminal trial has perpetuated two parallel failures of the criminal legal system, EJI says: little or no punishment for white defendants accused of crimes against Black victims, and high conviction rates and harsh punishments for Black defendants accused of crimes against white victims. “[P]erpetrators of racial violence, terrorism, and exploitation of disfavored groups have escaped accountability because their criminal behavior has been ignored by all-white juries,” the report states. Quoting a Louisiana newspaper from the late nineteenth century, the report highlights a second impact of jury discrimination: all-white “juries … seem to think that it is their bounden duty to render a verdict of ‘guilty as charged,’ because the accused has black skin.”
👉🏿 https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/equal-justice-initiative-releases-report-on-racial-discrimination-in-jury-selection
👉🏿 https://today.duke.edu/2012/04/jurystudy
the second question but it could be both
Thoughts on the death penalty?
Thoughts on me marrying your wife for the bit?
From,
@its-yoko-onos-biscuit-now
give me enough heroin and i'll consider it
God this is horrible and amazing at the same time. Absolutely worth watching all the way through!
Massachusetts is doing just dandy without it!
It's so bizarre how death penalty discourse treats a world without the death penalty as some hypothetical, and not the current status quo in not just many countries, but the majority of US states. There are states that abolished the death penalty before the Civil War and it's treated as if we have to entertain the possibility that not allowing this thing most of the country already doesn't allow may make the world turn into Mad Max. It's weird when people can't imagine a future that's a present in other countries, but some people can't imagine a future that's the present in their own country
tw : execution, mention of murder
take action for dustin higgs
i have only seen a few petitions for dustin higgs but i’m linking them below. if you know of anymore; PLEASE LINK THEM.
DUSTIN HIGGS IS NOT GUILTY OF THE CRIMES HE IS BEING EXECUTED FOR. PLEASE, TAKE A FEW SECONDS AND SIGN TO HELP SAVE HIM. TIME IS RUNNING OUT.
do not sign any white house petitions if you are not a united states citizen. do not bother using fake zip codes on those petitions. one false signature and the whole thing could be seen as invalid.
action network
change.org
change.org ii
white house ( US CITIZENS ONLY )
and if you have the means, here is the link of a paypal run by a member of his family
again, if you have more please link them. sign, share, discuss and spread awareness. don't wait until it's too late.
On January 13th, Lisa Montgomery was executed. The Supreme Court denied a competency hearing to prove her severe mental illness, which would have made her ineligible for the death penalty.
On January 14th, Corey Johnson was executed. The Supreme Court denied claims by Johnson's legal team of an intellectual disability and his Covid-19 diagnosis, arguing that his infection paired with a lethal injection would amount to a cruel and unusual punishment.
On January 15th, Dustin Higgs' execution went forward despite his attorney's appeal to delay the proceeding because of his Covid-19 diagnosis. His attorney also argued that Higgs was unfairly sentenced, since the actual gunman is only serving a life sentence.
The reality is that no federal government should be able to push up dates of execution so close together, ignore paperwork proving their execution to be illegal, and then carry out that execution regardless. Not to mention the injustices potentially carried out in the first place when a death sentence is convicted. As much as we focus on the individual lives of each execution, it is much more imperative to focus on the larger issue. capital punishment needs to abolished completely, for everyone on Death Row.
There will always be criminals so gruesome the public believes that 'yes, that bastard deserves death'. The issue with this is the argument on capital punishment has completely shifted to the wrong-doer, as if they are the deciders of why we have death row. In debating on the death penalty the question should never be do they deserve to die, but rather do we deserve to kill them. To put life or death in someone else's hands and decide based on that individual's character whether someone is deserving of life is immoral in itself. No one should ever be given that opportunity.
These executions won't be stopped unless there is something done. Joe Biden has pledged to abolish the death penalty and I encourage everyone to hold him to this. There is only one way to truly change the nation, and that is together.