“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…
In 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…
Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty (CCATDP), a project of EJUSA, crisscrossed the country in April. CCATDP’s National Coordinator Marc Hyden made trips to Tennessee and Utah, while I traveled to Orlando for the Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) Florida State Convention and then to Philadelphia for the Life/Peace/Justice Conference. Our participation in these conferences…
Pennsylvania has opened its application process for organizations to apply for funds through the Federal Victims Of Crime Act (VOCA). If you are an organization in Pennsylvania that works with crime survivors or victims’ families, you may be eligible to apply through this RFP process. Most importantly, Pennsylvania has identified men and boys of color…
]Violence is a public health issue. But few know that there is a small, but significant expansion of health initiatives across the country that are addressing the needs of survivors of crime, violence, and trauma, in the wake of community violence – and helping to actually decrease crime. Philadelphia, a pioneer in trauma-informed models of…
Our friends at the Legislative Initiative Against the Death Penalty (LIADP) are sponsoring a writing contest for high school seniors (class of 2016). LIADP’s Pauline Underwood Memorial Scholarship urges students to write a persuasive letter to the editor, supporting repeal of the death penalty in their state. Author of the winning letter will receive a…
By every measure, the death penalty declined again in 2015. A new report released today by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) found: There were fewer executions in 2015 than any year in the last two decades. The number of death sentences in 2015 is down 33% from just last year, and down 84% from…
In February, Governor Tom Wolf called for a moratorium on executions, pending the outcome of a statewide study of the death penalty in Pennsylvania. Governor Wolf’s policy is now the topic of a heated debate that was heard earlier this month in front of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Philadelphia. Terrance Williams, convicted of murder…
In 2014, the United States saw its fewest executions in twenty years. Now, less than a quarter of the way into 2015, two new governors – Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania and Kate Brown of Oregon – have declared a halt to executions in their states. In other states, lingering questions over lethal injection are also…
What do people affected by crime and those affected by the criminal justice system have in common? A lot more than is commonly believed – since people of color are most likely to be victims of crime and the targets of our justice system’s over-reliance on incarceration. This reality was front and center at this…