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Will the Next Man Rick Perry Executes Die Because He's Black?


Image courtesy of Texas Department of Criminal Justice
By: Renée Feltz
The Nation
Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Harris County prosecutor Linda Geffin was working late last week when she took a break and saw a Facebook post from a Texas death row attorney whose client, Duane Buck, faced imminent execution. Geffin had been part of the team that helped send Buck to death row; it was the only capital case she’d ever worked on, and as she recalls, it “left a big impression on me.” More than a decade had passed since the case, so she decided to reread the court transcripts, including a hundred or so pages of testimony from state psychologist Walter Quijano.


Rick Perry in the spotlight as Texas sets to work on controversial executions


Credit: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty
By: Ed Pilkington
The Guardian
Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Rick Perry, the frontrunner to become the Republican candidate in next year's presidential election, has just hours left to prevent a man being put to death in 


Exonerated Texas Inmate: “How Can You Applaud Death?”


Anthony Graves
ABC News
Friday, September 9, 2011

Anthony Graves read in the newspaper about the crowd at the Republican presidential debate applauding the fact that Gov. Rick Perry had authorized 234 executions during his tenure.

“How can you applaud death?” Graves asked.


Troy Anthony Davis' execution set for Sept. 21


By: Bill Rankin
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, September 7, 2011

 The Georgia Department of Corrections has set the execution of Troy Anthony Davis for 7 p.m. on Sept. 21.

Davis' appeals are exhausted. He is expected to once again ask the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant him clemency. The board has previously denied that request.The agency set the time and date a day after a Chatham County judge signed a death warrant for Davis, who was convicted of killing an off-duty Savannah police officer in 1989.


Freed West Memphis 3: Like kids at Christmas


Damien Echols
CBS News
Saturday, August 20, 2011

A lawyer for Damien Echols - one of the so-called West Memphis 3 freed from death row in Arkansas - said his client celebrated his first night of freedom in 18 years.

Steven Braga, the attorney for Damien Echols, told "The Early Show on Saturday Morning" that his client's first night of freedom was "unbelievable."


Supermax prisons: 21st century asylums


Credit: [REUTERS]
Lucy Flores, whose husband spent four years in Pelican Bay, at a rally in support of inmates on hunger strike
By: Helen Redmond
Al Jazeera English
Friday, August 5, 2011

Solitary confinement in the new dungeons of the US trigger mental illness in prisoners.


Many prisoners have lost 20-35 pounds in hunger strike, advocates say


Credit: Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times
Delores Canales, left, and other demonstrators gather outside the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown Los Angeles in support of state prisoners participating in a hunger strike
By: Jack Dolan
Los Angeles Times
Tuesday, July 19, 2011

A hunger strike at four California prisons is entering its third week as more than 400 inmates protest long, punitive stays in isolation cells.


Lives on the line at Pelican Bay


Solidarity activists rally in support of hunger strikers at Pelican Bay and other California prisons
By: Karen Stewart
Socialist Worker
Monday, July 18, 2011

EIGHTEEN DAYS into a hunger strike that began on July 1, prisoners in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay State Prison and elsewhere in California are putting their lives on the line to protest cruel prison conditions.


Barbarous Confinement

Op-Ed


Credit: Sungyoon Cho
By: Colin Dayan
The New York Times
Sunday, July 17, 2011

MORE than 1,700 prisoners in California, many of whom are in maximum isolation units, have gone on a hunger strike. The protest began with inmates in the Security Housing Unit at Pelican Bay State Prison. How they have managed to communicate with each other is anyone’s guess — but their protest is everyone’s concern. Many of these prisoners have been sent to virtually total isolation and enforced idleness for no crime, not even for alleged infractions of prison regulations.