Dems Against the Death Penalty TN

10/07/2022

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/06/john-henry-ramirez-executed-texas/

Ramirez was convicted in the 2004 fatal stabbing of a father of nine. His Supreme Court win allowed a pastor to lay hands on him during his lethal injection.

02/23/2021

At heart, I am an optimist, but I sometimes think we'll be the last state in the South to abolish state killing. One thing is now, for sure. We won't be the 1st. Congratulations to everyone on Death Row in Virginia. Tennessee's 50 souls still await a grim fate.😞

Gov. Ralph Northam (D) is expected to sign a bill banning capital punishment into law, making Virginia the 23rd state in the U.S. to abolish the death penalty.

12/19/2020

Sick stuff. Literally.

While Trump is planning pardons, the federal government will execute two sick men before Jan. 20—the culmination of a killing spree unparalleled since the 19th century.

03/05/2020

Still hoping against hope that our sister state will relent before it is too late. I stand with Martin Luther King, III, in beseeching the Alabama governor to grant a stay. Pray for Nate, his family, the families of the slain men, and those with the power to stop this!

Alabama family pleas with Alabama governor to grant clemency for death row inmate set to die Thursday.

08/15/2019

In less than 1 hour, Stephen West will die in the electric chair, at Riverbend Correctional, in Nashville. It will not bring his victims back to life. It will not repay the extremely exorbitant cost of keeping a prisoner on Death Row, or cover the hours of court and legal expenses that are played out over decades.

It will end his having to awaken each day to face the horror of what he did. He will die, and his punishment will end, not when God wills it, but at the hands of the citizens of Tennessee, at an hour we've selected. West deserves long and impactful punishment, but today, he's being let off the hook. Where's the "tough justice" in that?

05/17/2019

They did it again. In our names.

Tennessee death row inmate Donnie Edward Johnson's ex*****on was carried out by lethal injection on Thursday night.

05/13/2019

A sad day for our state:

The U.S. Supreme Court made its decision Monday, days before death row inmate Donnie Edward Johnson, 68, is scheduled to die. Had the high court agreed to hear the case, it might have delayed his ex*****on.

09/08/2018

Cruel. Unusual. Unconstitutional.

https://www.facebook.com/91345192547/posts/10155781074937548/

It's a controversy with dozens of lives in the balance, with a central question: do death row inmates suffer pain when they die from lethal injection?

07/27/2018

A truly shameful breach of the Founders' admonition about "cruel and unusual punishment". Inhuman treatment doesn't negate the humanity of even the most hardened criminal; we must be better than this!

Tennessee death row inmates brought a court case to challenge the state's use of a controversial drug in lethal injections.

04/23/2018

Watch this. Please. Where do we stand on this increasingly thorny problem, as a state? When is our "SELL BY DATE"?
(Ignore Tag On Video; It's About Dealth Penalty.)

Rachel Maddow revisits the questions that surrounded a Donald Trump Foundation donation to the campaign of Florida A.G. Pam Bondi coinciding with her decisio...

03/19/2018

Disappointing.

The Supreme Court turned away requests that it reconsider the constitutionality of the death penalty and how Arizona applies it.

03/08/2018

Do you see this as shades of the same lack of progressive prison policy reform that bedevils the U.S. in administration of the death penalty?

Federal inmates who are aging or very sick can ask for “compassionate release.” Hundreds have died waiting for an answer.