It’s always easy for prosecutors to argue that relief on an appeal based on procedural errors should be overturned, but it’s important to remember that those appeals wouldn’t have been necessary if the State hadn’t bent the rules in the first place. www.texomashomepage....

Being formerly incarcerated does not need to be end all be all. From incarceration to the Nevada state legislature, Jovan Jackson wants to help others like him have a second chance outside of jail or prison. We need more leaders like him. thisisreno.com/2025/...

The participation of the public is essential to holding our elected officials and their agents accountable. States with the death penalty should not be permitted to hide their execution protocols behind closed doors to shield itself from responsibility. www.cbsnews.com/news...

People who demonstrate that they are capable of rehabilitation, especially when freed for a long period of time, are evidence that excessive sentencing does not work. Everyone deserves a second chance to demonstrate their growth. www.nytimes.com/2025...

A Kansas trial court yesterday issued a curious opinion in State v. Fielder. www.aclu.org/press-r... 1/4

A “bloody spectacle.” As more states seek to adopt alternative execution methods to lethal injection, some, like South Carolina, have now looked to the firing squad. 1/2

Separate and apart from any political considerations raised by the Attorney General’s decision to seek death in Luigi Mangione’s case, that case will also reveal the complex relationship between federal and state authorities over a single individual. www.nytimes.com/2025... 1/2

Capital crimes are not committed in a vacuum; people do not commit such crimes because they opt to do so, but often instead because they themselves are the products of generational issues. The lack of regard for mental illness and trauma must end. www.aclu.org/news/ca...

With the number of known executions at their highest since 2015, the United States once again stands out for being one of the now-15 countries that still impose the death penalty. @amnesty's report, which is worth a read, shows the company the U.S. keeps. www.amnesty.org/en/d...

Executions result in the loss of someone who was not the same person that committed the crimes that landed them on the row. If rehabilitation is not enough, then what purpose, other than plain retribution, does having the death penalty really serve? theintercept.com/202...

For the first time in the current administration, the Justice Department will be seeking the death penalty, against Luigi Mangione, who has already been charged in New York but with crimes that do not have the death penalty as a potential sentence. www.washingtonpost.c...

Over the weekend, Louisiana voters, by a two-to-one margin, rejected a constitutional amendment that would have made it easier to send children to adult prisons. By rejecting the amendment, voters demonstrated that harsher incarceration is not the answer. lailluminator.com/20...

Two days ago, in State ex rel. Oklahoma Bar Association v. Shields, the Oklahoma Supreme Court suspended for six months a prosecutor who secretly watched jury deliberations in a murder trial. www.oscn.net/applica... 1/3

Today, the Court of Criminal Appeals declared that Travis Cobb was actually innocent and deserved relief from a crime he was sentenced twenty-five years in prison for. search.txcourts.gov/... 1/4

Though Houston’s Harris County elected a district attorney last November that said he would only seek the death penalty against an “extraordinarily small” subset of those eligible to receive it, he will oversee his first death penalty trial very soon. www.houstonchronicle... 1/2

As @boltsmag and @MotherJones emphasize, observers should keep in mind just how close Louisiana has been to wrongfully executing multiple individuals, all with cases that involved prosecutorial misconduct, as it ramps up its death-penalty machinery. boltsmag.org/the-hum...

Pennsylvania's governor Josh Shapiro has called for the death penalty in his state to be abolished, and he may have the opportunity to do so during this legislative session. www.post-gazette.com... 1/2

Earlier today the Supreme Court ruled, over the dissent of four judges, not to stay the execution of Jessie Hoffman, Jr., who is set to be executed tonight by suffocation through nitrogen gas. This is not what justice looks like. www.supremecourt.gov...

Great piece by @radleybalko.bsky.social on five men who spent decades in prison and now advocate on behalf of other people navigating the criminal legal system in Louisiana. radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-redeem...

By running charges through county attorneys which provide oversight, the police have an additional check on their power to arrest and detain individuals. boltsmag.org/cook-co... 1/3

Exacerbating the current political climate is the State of Florida, where the legislature continues to try to expand the death penalty. floridaphoenix.com/2... 1/2

Yesterday, while Texas stayed the execution of David Wood, a federal judge in Louisiana similarly stayed the upcoming execution of Jessie Hoffman Jr. The pause for Mr. Hoffman, comes as a result of a challenge to the method of execution: nitrogen hypoxia. 1/4

In an incredible turn of events, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has STAYED the execution of David Wood that was scheduled for this Thursday. While the Court did not provide its reasoning, Mr. Wood will now have the chance to litigate his claims. search.txcourts.gov/...

"[T]he jurisprudence of capital punishment remains a work in progress," a panel of the Fifth Circuit acknowledged a few days ago when it vacated the death sentence of Brittany Holberg that resulted in major part from the misconduct of the prosecution. www.ca5.uscourts.gov... 1/2

Hey everyone! We're an organization in Texas that fights against the death penalty and mass incarceration in the Lone Star State. Follow along, and learn more about the work we do: www.texasdefender.org