Criminal Law

Check out TADP's New Website

Posted on April 27, 2010
We are in the midst of a transition from this site to our new website. So, if you are wondering why we haven't blogged in a while, it is because we are blogging on the new site.When you check it out, you will see that there are still some things we are working on (like a picture for the home page), but we hope to have those issues taken care of as soon as possible...

More Evangelical Pastors Speaking Out on the Death Penalty

Posted on April 12, 2010
Reverend Matt Randles, Pastor of Headwaters Covenant Church in Helena, Montana, has a great piece in the The Washington Post's "On Faith" Section. This thoughtful reflection is instructive for all Christians who are wrestling with the issue of the death penalty...

Moving Story about Sisters' Reponse to Murder

Posted on April 07, 2010
In today's Chicago Tribune, you can read a powerful story of the love among sisters who have suffered a great deal of tragedy. The article tells the story of two sisters struggling to deal with the brutal murder of their pregnant sister, Nancy Bishop Langert, and her husband, Richard, 20 years ago by a teen-aged intruder...

Amnesty International Releases Global Death Penalty Report for 2009

Posted on April 05, 2010
Amnesty International recently released its global death penalty report showing 700 people were executed in 18 countries in 2009 with at least 2,000 people sentenced to death. 179 countries had no executions in 2009. Countries with the highest number of executions were Iran with at least 388, Iraq with at least 120, Saudi Arabia with at least 69, and the United States with 52...

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Bob Clement Reflects on His Father, Governor Frank Clement, and Tennessee's Death Penalty

Posted on March 30, 2010
In Sunday's Tennessean, former U.S. Congressman Bob Clement, reflects on his father's struggle with the death penalty as Governor of Tennessee. Governor Frank Clement visited the inmates on death row and talked with their families, something most Governors will not do...

Fox News Reports Crippling Costs of the Death Penalty

Posted on March 29, 2010
In an article posted on Saturday, Fox News reporter, Ed Barnes, writes about the exorbitant costs of the death penalty in this country, with Tennessee's system specifically mentioned. One of the most telling statements in the story--"The cost of killing killers is killing us...

U.S. Supreme Court Stops Texas Execution of Hank Skinner

Posted on March 26, 2010
Hank Skinner was already eating his last meal Wednesday when he received word of his stay from the U.S. Supreme Court. Skinner was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1993 murders of his girlfriend, Twila Busby, and her two mentally disabled adult sons...

Justice Day on the Hill 2010

Posted on March 24, 2010
Yesterday, nearly 30 Tennesseans gathered at the state capitol for TADP?s Annual Justice Day on the Hill. To start the day, we gathered in the Old Supreme Court chambers in the Capitol building and were inspired by several legislators who addressed the group...

Fast for Life and Raise Money for TADP

Posted on March 17, 2010
A few years ago, former TADP board chair and active supporter, Dr. Amy Sayward, decided that she would combine her support for TADP with her spiritual practices during Holy Week. Subsequently, the TADP "Fast for Life" was born. Amy recalls, "On February 4th of 2009, I joined 66 other people in the single-digit cold, standing in an open field, trying to keep our candles lit, as the State of Tennessee executed yet another of its citizens...

Tennessee Death Row Inmate, Timothy McKinney, Gets a New Trial

Posted on March 11, 2010
Timothy McKinney was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death in 1999. McKinney, an African-American, is accused of killing Donald Williams, an off-duty Memphis police officer after an altercation with Williams earlier in the evening on Christmas night at Crumpy?s Comedy Club in Memphis...

20/20 Highlights Innocence Issues for Two Tennessee Death Row Inmates

Posted on March 09, 2010
On Saturday night, ABC News' 20/20 did a story on the cases of Gary Sutton and James Dellinger, two men who have been on Tennessee's death row since the early 90's. The men were sent to death row based on the testimony of former Tennessee Medical Examiner, Charles Harlan, who was fired and lost his medical license...

The Case of Gaile Owens: Unequal Justice

Posted on March 08, 2010
On January 15, 1986, Gaile Owens was sentenced to death for the murder of her husband, Ron Owens, by a jury that did not have all the facts. The jury was never told about the abuse Gaile suffered at the hands of her husband nor did they know about her willingness to plead guilty for a sentence of life in prison...

Texas Judge Says Death Penalty Is Unconstitutional

Posted on March 08, 2010
Judge Kevin Fine, a Houston Judge from Harris county in Texas, a county that sends more people to death row than any other in the country, ruled in a pre-trial motion in a capital murder case on Thursday that the death penalty is unconstitutional. Attorneys for John Edward Green Jr...

Supreme Court Declines to Hear Tennessee Lethal Injection Challenge

Posted on March 07, 2010
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the challenge to Tennessee's lethal injection protocol brought by Tennessee death row inmate, Edward Jerome Harbison. In 2007, District Court Judge Aleta Trauger ruled that Tennessee's lethal injection process did risk torture, violating Harbison's Eighth Amendment rights...

Write-a-Thon at Rhodes College

Posted on February 26, 2010
Last night, students at Rhodes College hosted their first TADP write-a-thon as part of their ?Justice Jam? event. Allison Dove, a senior at Rhodes, organized the write-a-thon and did a tremendous job. Our table was located in the ?Lair,? a large building where students gather to eat and hang out...

Kansas Falls One Vote Short in the Senate

Posted on February 22, 2010
Today, the Kansas Senate failed to repeal the death penalty with a 20 to 20 vote but demonstrated how far the state has come and how close it is to abolishing the death penalty. The bill would have repealed the death penalty, replacing it with life without the possibility of parole...

Advocates Speak Out for Gaile Owens

Posted on February 11, 2010
Channel 5 News featured a story last night about the status of Gaile Owens' case and the increasing number people who support the commutation of her sentence. Owens, who is facing execution for the 1985 murder of her husband, was convicted and sentenced to death though the jury never heard testimony about the abuse she suffered or that she was willing to plead guilty for a life sentence...

Student Conference on the Death Penalty 2010

Posted on February 10, 2010
February 6 has come and gone, and the student conference that we have been preparing for came to fruition on Saturday with approximately 125 students, parents, and professors in attendance. We had an all-time high of 165 people registered, but we could not control the weather, and the snow and rain kept some people home?including our keynote, Diann Rust-Tierney...

Gaile Owens' Attorneys Argue for a New Sentence

Posted on February 05, 2010
Today Gaile Owens' attorneys argued to the Tennessee Supreme Court that her execution date should not be set, and instead, that her death sentence be commuted to life. Gaile was sentenced to death by a Memphis jury for hiring Sidney Porterfield to kill her husband in 1985...

Counting the Cost

Posted on February 04, 2010
One year ago today at 1:00 a.m., the state executed my friend, Steve Henley. Steve had spent 23 years on Tennessee's death row for the murder of Fred and Edna Stafford, an elderly couple who lived near Steve's grandmother. Steve was convicted and sentenced to death based on the testimony of a co-defendant who made a deal and served only 5 years for his part in the crime...

Kansas Legislature Makes Progress Toward Repeal

Posted on February 02, 2010
On Friday, the Kansas Senate Judiciary committee voted 7-4 for a bill that would repeal the death penalty for crimes committed after July 1. The bill replaces the death penalty with the crime of aggravated murder which comes with a mandatory sentence of life without the possibility of parole...

With a Billion Dollar Budget Shortfall, Tennessee Should Consider Death Penalty Repeal

Posted on January 26, 2010
Tennessee lawmakers began a new session of the General Assembly yesterday facing the challenge of balancing a state budget with what may be a nearly billion dollar shortfall. The current year?s budget includes a 10 percent reduction in the state budget, though many of those cuts were softened by the $2...

TADP Celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Posted on January 20, 2010
On Monday, TADP supporters in Nashville gathered with thousands of others on Jefferson Street for the annual MLK Day March and rally at Tennessee State University. The day was warm and spirits were high as we made our way down Jefferson Street together...

Abolition Movement Gaining Ground with Conservatives

Posted on January 19, 2010
Fifteen TADP supporters, including staff, board members, and other activists returned on Sunday from the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty Conference in Louisville, KY. As usual, the conference was packed with workshops and lectures from experts all over the country as well as from exonerees and murder victims family members, all who are working to abolish the death penalty in our country...

More on the Unfairness of Gaile Owens' Death Sentence

Posted on January 11, 2010
In Sunday's Tennessean, John Seigenthaler--chairman emeritus of the Tennessean and founder of the First Amendment Center in Nashville--had another opinion piece, following up on his piece of a few weeks ago, concerning the case of Gaile Owens, an inmate on Tennessee's death row...

USA Today Article on Cecil Johnson's Autopsy

Posted on January 07, 2010
An article just posted on the USA Today website discusses the court hearing tomorrow that will determine whether or not the state of Tennessee can conduct an autopsy on the body of Cecil Johnson, who was executed in Tennessee on December 2, despite his religious objections to an autopsy...

American Law Institute Abandons the Death Penalty

Posted on January 04, 2010
As we reported in an earlier blog post, in October 2009, the American Law Institute, which created the intellectual framework for the modern capital punishment system, abandoned the effort "in light of the current intractable institutional and structural obstacles to ensuring a minimally adequate system for administering capital punishment...

The Uneven Hand of Justice

Posted on December 21, 2009
John Seigenthaler, chairman emeritus of The Tennessean and founder of the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, had a wonderful article in Sunday's Tennessean entitled "The Uneven Hand of Justice" about the Gaile Owens case in Tennessee...

Tennessee Death Row Inmate, Perry Cribbs, To Get New Sentencing Hearing

Posted on December 21, 2009
Today the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that death row inmate, Perry Cribbs, is entitled to a new sentencing hearing, reversing his death sentence and remanding the case back to the trial court for a new sentencing hearing. Perry Cribbs has been on Tennessee's death row for 15 years...

States Without the Death Penalty Have Lower Homicide Rates

Posted on December 16, 2009
An article in today's New York Times explains that, "the dozen states that have chosen not to enact the death penalty since the Supreme Court ruled in 1976 that it was constitutionally permissible have not had higher homicide rates than states with the death penalty...

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