Tim McKinney walks free after over a decade on death row


Credit: Wendy Ocheltree
Timothy McKinney is reunited with his family today.
By: Campaign to End the Death Penalty
Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Wonderful news! Tim McKinney who has spent 15 years on death row walked out of jail today and into the arms of his waiting family. As Lee Wengraf, an activist who fought hard to try to win Tim his freedom, wrote: “Tim McKinney will be home with his family today. This has been a long struggle and even though he deserves to be exonerated outright,  this is a victory against the Tennessee Courts who wanted to execute him.”


Above the law

Tales from death row: Justice for Rodney Reed


By: Caitlin Adams

I have a bit more to say about Lisa Tanner's comments that were aired as part of Adam Racusin's KEYE Austin story on 4/25/13 (I bet none of you are surprised!). The Attorney General's office refused an interview for the recent program, so her interview was from 2001. 

In addressing a question concerning the two beer cans found near Ms. Stites's body, this is Ms. Tanner's response:


Nathan Dunlap granted temporary reprieve by Colorado Gov. Hickenlooper


Credit: Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post
Nathan Dunlap at a May 1, 2013 court hearing at the Arapahoe County Court in Division court room 408 in Centennial.
By: Karen Augéand and Lynn Bartels
The Denver Post
Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Gov. John Hickenlooper on Wednesday issued an executive order granting convicted killer Nathan Dunlap a "temporary reprieve" from an execution that had been just three months away.

In an executive order that provides an indefinite stay of execution, Hickenlooper writes that the decision has weighed heavily on him.

He calls Dunlap's crimes "horrendous" — although nowhere in the order does he refer to Dunlap by name — and declares his respect for the jurors who handed down the death sentence.

But more than 15 years have passed since that decision, and those years have provided "the benefit of information that exposes an inequitable system," Hickenlooper's order states.

"It is a legitimate question whether we as a state should be taking lives," the order says. "Because the question is about the use of the death penalty itself, and not about Offender No. 89148, I have opted to grant a reprieve and not clemency in this case."


Catastrophe Justice


Jeffrey Havard
By: Mark Clements

We know just how unfair the criminal justice system can be, but some cases stand out in showing how our entire criminal justice system is broken and how it is a calamity toward the poor.

Take the work of forensic pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne. He worked mainly in Mississippi, performing thousands of autopsies and describing his findings as an expert witness in trials. Hayne worked between 1980 and the late 2000s. According to the New York Times, “For most of that time, Dr. Hayne performed about 1,700 autopsies annually, more than four for every day of the year and nearly seven times the maximum caseload recommended by the National Association of Medical Examiners.”

Hayne has since been barred from performing autopsies in Mississippi.


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