Essay: Julius Jones was spared by a governor who prayed. Let’s all now pray to end the death penalty.
Celebrating the commutation of Julius Jones’ death sentence in Oklahoma, US, last week, Christian anti-death penalty activist SHANE CLAIBORNE says the fight for Jones’ freedom – and abolition of the death penalty – goes on…
Pastor can hold inmate’s hand during execution, says US state of Alabama
Montgomery, AlabamaAP The US state of Alabama said it will allow a death row inmate’s pastor to hold his hand during a lethal injection next month, a decision that was made to end litigation over the issue. Lawyers for Alabama wrote in a June court document that inmates can now have a personal spiritual adviser […]
Sierra Leone parliament votes to abolish death penalty
Dakar, SenegalReuters Sierra Leone’s parliament voted unanimously on Friday to repeal the death penalty more than two decades after the West African country carried out its last execution. President Julius Maada Bio is expected to soon sign the bill into law, which will make Sierra Leone the 23rd African country to abolish capital punishment. Sierra […]
US Christian leaders urge clemency for Oklahoma death row inmate, cite mounting evidence
RNS Faith leaders are ramping up their support for an Oklahoma death row inmate as his clemency hearing nears. Julius Jones, 40, was sentenced to death in 2002, but his advocates say a different person committed the crime in which a prominent Edmond, Oklahoma, businessman was killed during a carjacking. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole […]
Essay: The death penalty is a burden of shame for the United States. It must end
In an article first published on Religion News Service, DIANE RANDALL, general secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation in the US, says capital punishment should be abolished…
Essay: William Barr and the politics of death
SHANE CLAIBORNE, activist, author and co-director of Red Letter Christians, says during this year the US has had more executions than in the past 50 years combined, despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic…
US faith leaders blast Trump administration’s renewed use of death penalty
Washington DC, USRNS US faith leaders are speaking out against the US Government’s decision to begin executing federal prisoners, decrying the Trump administration’s decision to end a nearly two-decade-longmoratorium on the federal death penalty. The outcry comes as the US Department of Justice carried out its second execution this week on Thursday morning, killing 68-year-old […]
US Supreme Court halts Texas execution over clergy question
Houston, USAP The US Supreme Court granted a reprieve Tuesday to a Texas inmate scheduled to die for fatally stabbing an 85-year-old woman more than two decades ago, continuing a more than four-month delay of executions in the nation’s busiest death penalty state during the coronavirus pandemic. The justices blocked Ruben Gutierrez’s execution about an […]
Essay: Death in the middle of death – On the execution of Walter Barton
In an article first published on Religion News Service, anti-death penalty activist and author SHANE CLAIBORNE expresses hopes that executions are not something people want in a post-pandemic US…
ESSAY: WHY SUPPORT FOR THE DEATH PENALTY IS MUCH HIGHER AMONG WHITE AMERICANS
In an article first published on The Conversation, KEVIN O’NEAL COKLEY, director of the Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis at the University of Texas at Austin, looks at the connections between the death penalty and issues like race and gender in the US…