“Recommended this week” features highlights from the past week in news about the death penalty, crime survivors, and trauma-informed responses to crime. Supreme Court To Hear Cases Challenging Two Texas Death Sentences, Buzzfeed The high court agrees to hear the death penalty cases of Duane Buck and Bobby James Moore. After nearly 40 years, murder charges dropped against…
Read MoreIn a 5-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice should have recused himself in the case of Terrance Williams. The judge in question, Justice Ronald Castille had been the District Attorney of Philadelphia and had participated in Williams’ original death penalty original death penalty trial. The following is a press…
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The Los Angeles Metropolitan Churches (LAM) is building a network of local churches and community groups to provide trauma-informed services to African-American, Latino, and immigrant crime survivors in South Los Angeles. And now, for the first time, they are receiving federal VOCA funds – funds earmarked for victims services – in order to carry out…
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In college, Senator Colby Coash celebrated at a tailgate party outside of a prison during an execution. Now he’s part of the growing conservative movement to end the death penalty in the United States – a movement that EJUSA’s Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty has helped spawn. Read The Washington Post’s in-depth article about…
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In June 2015, Dylann Roof allegedly killed nine African Americans in a mass shooting in a black church in Charleston last year. The families of the victims responded to the tragedy with powerful messages of forgiveness. Now, the DOJ has declared it wants to execute Roof for the crime, even though his death by lethal…
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Is anyone beyond redemption? What does true justice look like? Does God support capital punishment? These are a few of the questions raised in a new book, Executing Grace, by Shane Claiborne. The book was released yesterday and is available at your local (or online) bookstore. Claiborne is a prominent Christian speaker, activist, and…
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Nevada just became the ninth death penalty state to go a decade or more without an execution. Add those nine to the 19 states without capital punishment, and you have 28 states that have abandoned executions in either law or practice. And in the remaining states? The death penalty is in complete chaos. Florida’s death…
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EJUSA is thrilled to be featured in a new publication, “A Handbook for Jewish Communities Fighting Mass Incarceration,” by the Jewish human rights organization, T’ruah. The Handbook is a comprehensive guide for action from a Jewish perspective. It contains background information on various aspects of mass incarceration, from what happens when police stop people on the streets, to…
Read MoreToday, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would hear arguments in Buck v. Stephens, a death penalty case raising extraordinary issues of racial bias. Duane Buck is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court’s ruling that his case did not warrant re-consideration, despite his claim that his lawyer was constitutionally ineffective for knowingly…
Read MoreConservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty was featured in the Sunday edition of the Washington Post. The article’s author, Marin Cogan, interviewed CCATDP’s Heather Beaudoin and myself, and Cogan highlighted why conservatives are increasingly changing their views on the death penalty. She wrote, Beaudoin reaches out to evangelical and other faith-based leaders and gets them…
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