By Anna Arceneaux, Staff Attorney, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 1:45pm
A single plaque hangs on the wall outside the warden's office of Holman State Prison in Atmore, Alabama. It honors the execution team of the Alabama Department of Corrections with the Commissioner's Award of the Year, 2007. As you wait for admittance to visit a client on death row, the plaque is a painful reminder of the men who were executed by the team on those very same prison grounds.
By Anna Arceneaux, Staff Attorney, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 2:13pm
For me, the new year is an occasion to reflect on the triumphs and disappointments of the year past, to renew my goals and commitments, and to resolve again to face the new challenges and opportunities in the year ahead. This New Year's Eve, I am toasting to life.
In North Carolina, where our office is based, death sentences dropped dramatically in 2008: only one man was sent to death row as juries across the state resoundingly voted in favor of life sentences. Not one person was executed. Two innocent men left North Carolina's death row and stepped on free soil, including our client Bo Jones. For the first time in over 16 years, Bo spent the holiday season at home with his family.
By Anna Arceneaux, Staff Attorney, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 5:46pm
Darold Ray Stenson was to be executed by the State of Washington today. His execution would have marked the first execution in the state in over seven years. Thankfully, both state and federal courts have granted him a temporary stay, and at least for the next 90 days, Mr. Stenson will live.
Statistical evidence suggests that troubling sentencing disparities exist in Washington based on the race of the victim. Washington prosecutors have sought death almost three times more when one or more of the victims is white than when the victims are persons of color, and a defendant in Washington is more likely to be sentenced to death if he killed a white victim. Both of Mr. Stenson's victims were white.
