death penalty
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Dylann Roof’s Lawyers Appeal Death Sentence, Saying He Was Too Mentally Ill to Represent Himself at Trial
Lawyers for Dylann Roof, the avowed white supremacist convicted of killing nine black parishioners in a South Carolina church in 2015, want his death sentence overturned. In a 321-page motion filed Tuesday with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals, Roof’s lawyers appealed his death sentence, arguing that Roof was mentally unstable when he represented himself…
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Death Row Inmate Keith Tharpe Died in Prison Before Execution. Here's Why His Story Leaves Me Conflicted
The curious case of Keith Tharpe, a story that spans nearly three decades, has finally come to its end; although, not the way many expected. Tharpe—whose saga has been followed by The Root’s own Michael Harriot since he was first set to be executed back in September 2017—was a convicted murderer and death row inmate…
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Supremes to Review Whether Lee Boyd Malvo, Serving Life as Accomplice to the DC Sniper, Deserves a New Sentence
The nation’s highest court on Wednesday is set to review the life sentences handed down in the early aughts to a then-teenage Lee Boyd Malvo, convicted of multiple murders as an active accomplice of John Allen Muhammad, the serial killer known as the D.C. Sniper—a review that has even won the support of some whom…
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Women Could Face Death Penalty for Having an Abortion Under Proposed Texas Law
Texas lawmakers held a hearing this week on a bill that could subject women to the death penalty if they had an abortion. Period, point blank, no exceptions. The legislator behind the bill is Texas state Rep. Tony Tinderholt, a five-times-married Republican out of Arlington who had to be placed under police protection when he…
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Supreme Court Declines to Hear Case of Man Sentenced to Death by a Racist Juror
The Supreme Court agreed that at least one of the jurors who convicted a Georgia man of murder was a virulent racist. They previously came to the conclusion that racism may have affected a juror’s decision. But in a unanimous no-decision, the Supreme Court declined to take up the prisoner’s death penalty appeal, effectively sending…
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737 Death Row Inmates in California Get a Reprieve From Gov. Gavin Newsom
There are 737 people on death row in California, and on Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom gave them all a reprieve because he believes the death penalty is immoral and discriminatory. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Newsom will issue an executive order on Wednesday to officially declare a moratorium on capital punishment in the state…
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American Justice: Abuse Domineque Ray as a Boy, Discriminate Against Him as a Man, and on Death Row, Kill Him
Domineque Ray was born in a country that is proud of its stated principles, which supposedly include justice for all. For Ray, justice in America meant enduring sexual and other forms of physical abuse throughout his childhood, so much so that he was ashamed to even admit it to save his own life. Propublica summed…
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Washington State Abolishes the Death Penalty, Finding the Punishment ‘Racially Biased’
Washington state’s Supreme Court abolished the death penalty on Thursday on the grounds that it was applied randomly and “in a racially biased manner,” thus violating the state’s constitution. With the decision, Washington is now the 20th U.S. state to ban capital punishment. The case striking down capital punishment was brought forward by a black…