Georgia Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, a network of conservatives questioning the alignment of capital punishment with their conservative principles, officially launched last week with a news conference at the Georgia State Capitol. “Georgia may have led the nation in executions in 2016, but our state is actually moving away from the death penalty,” said Marc…
EJUSA is proud to be sponsoring and organizing a exciting event at Northland Church, Florida’s largest evangelical congregation. Northland Pastor, Dr. Joel Hunter, will moderate a discussion about the death penalty with author and activist Shane Claiborne, Florida death row exoneree Herman Lindsay, and Darlene Farah, whose daughter, Shelby, was murdered. Please join us for…
Florida prosecutors have played a major role in creating an unjust criminal justice system with their ability to decide who to prosecute and what charges to file. Several prosecutors in the state had a history of extreme overzealousness and seemed to forget the community they were elected to represent. They charged children as young as…
The death penalty continued its historic decline in 2016, according to the year-end report put out by the Death Penalty Information Center. The report found: The number of death sentenced imposed by American juries was lower than in any other year since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1972. The 30 death sentences from…
African American State Legislators Cite Disproportionate Sentencing The National Black Caucus of State Legislators (NBCSL) has passed its first-ever resolution supporting repeal of the death penalty in the United States. The historic vote took place during the NBCSL 40th Annual Legislative Conference in New Orleans, LA. It is an escalation of the organization’s previous call for…
Working for justice is hard. Sometimes it feels overwhelming. You know that because you’ve been in the trenches with EJUSA for more than two decades. But we always go on because we feel strongly and passionately that we must change the conversation about violence – its causes and solutions. And today, we are at an…
The death penalty remains in steep decline across the United States, and a recently released report (PDF) illustrates how capital punishment is falling out of favor even in Texas. According to the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, this year the Lone Star State sentenced the fewest number of people to die since 1976….
Community members joined murder victims’ family members, religious leaders, families of of death row inmates, and a death row exoneree for a “Cities For Life” event in St. Augustine last week, hosted by EJUSA and the Diocese of St. Augustine. EJUSA’s National Organizer Christine Henderson emceed the evening, which featured the lighting of 386 candles,…
The United States is slowly turning against the death penalty. Its end seems inevitable, but unfortunately, there were a few setbacks this year. Ballot initiatives in California and Nebraska fell short of passing. Despite this, I feel incredibly encouraged for several reasons. A recent Pew poll showed that support for the death penalty is at…
Last week, voters in three states chose to keep the death penalty, even in the face of progress on other criminal justice reforms. Though these losses pale in comparison to the longstanding and continuing momentum away from the death penalty in the U.S., they reveal just how much our nation struggles with how to respond…