death penalty

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/24/2021
  

  Virginia Becomes First Southern State to Abolish the Death Penalty

  Governor Ralph Northam explained that the state could guarantee neither racial equity nor the indisputable guilt of condemned prisoners. Virginia had executed more prisoners than any American state or colony in 413 years of the death penalty.

• 
• 2/28/2021
  

  Is Virginia's Move to Abolish the Beginning of the End of the Death Penalty in America?

  by Rick Halperin

  Virginia's move to abolish capital punishment is long overdue, and other states and the federal government should follow suit to restore American legitimacy on global human rights. 

• 
• SOURCE: Racist Roots: Origins of North Carolina's Death Penalty
  10/5/2020
  

  “The Death Penalty Is Another Confederate Monument We Must Tear Down.”

  A collaborative project examines the history of capital punishment in North Carolina, beginning with an introduction by death penalty litigator Henderson Hill. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  4/24/19
  

  White supremacists dragged James Byrd to his death in 1998. One of them was just executed.

  Some community members still talk about the negative impression left by the horrific crime and legal aftermath.

• 
• SOURCE: New Yorker
  8-22-16
  

  New Yorker profiles activist who's drawing attention to lynchings

  by Jeffrey Toobin

  In Alabama, Bryan Stevenson is saving inmates from execution and memorializing the darkest episodes of America’s past.

• 
• 10-6-15
  

  “It’s a Hell of a Thing, Killing a Man.”

  by Anthony Galvin

  George Stinney was one of the 4% of executed people who are completely innocent. His crime was being black in the forties. He was 14.

• 
• SOURCE: The Baltimore Sun
  9-2-14
  

  There's no such thing as a gentle execution

  by Jonathan Zimmerman

  We have spent two centuries trying to put people to death without putting them in discomfort. And it hasn't worked.