Full Coverage: California Death Penalty

A federal appeals court on Thursday overturned a federal judge’s ruling that found the state death penalty system unconstitutional.

Noting that some 300 U.S. veterans are sitting on death row in prisons around the country, an advocacy group Tuesday called for greater efforts to assist battle-scarred former troops who are convicted of capital murder after their military service.

To the editor: Seeing the photos of 16 California death row inmates on The Times’ front page gave me pause.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has finally settled on four barbiturates — amobarbital, pentobarbital, secobarbital and thiopental — as the poisons of choice for its proposed new method of executing people.

A list of four new lethal injection drugs proposed by the state of California on Friday all belong to a class of medications that once promised an end to anxiety, sleeplessness and certain mental illnesses but are now routinely used to end the lives of both the guilty and the innocent.

In my experience, drinking with a nun is not an ordinary occurrence, but, two weeks ago, I had the honor of sharing a bit of whiskey on the rocks with an extraordinary woman of faith, Sister Helen Prejean, as she wound down from another evening of agitating against the death penalty.

California unveiled a new method for executing prisoners Friday, proposing a “humane and dignified” single-drug injection protocol that could restart capital punishment after a nearly 10-year hiatus.

Death penalty supporters on Friday hailed California’s proposal of a new execution method Friday, though not without chagrin over the time it took.

A pro-death penalty group unveiled a ballot measure Friday that would require death row inmates to work in prison and provide new deadlines intended to expedite appeals.

Any day now the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation will be announcing what drug it intends to use to execute the 747 people on death row.

California’s death penalty system, plagued by delays and inadequate funding, may survive an appeals court’s scrutiny because of legal rules that limit federal oversight, a U.S. court panel indicated Monday.

The constitutionality of California’s death penalty system will be reviewed next week by a panel of three Democratic appointees on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Nearly a decade after the state last executed a prisoner, California has agreed to a settlement that moves the state closer to restarting the death chamber.

Let’s take a count, shall we? With the state Legislature’s razor-thin rejection of Gov.

To the editor: When death row runs out of room, it may be time to look at other options.

With no executions in nearly a decade and newly condemned men arriving each month, the nation’s largest death row has run out of room.

Gov.

We aren’t there yet, but a new Field Poll finds fewer Californians – 56% – support the death penalty today than at any time since the Nixon administration, and down from a high of 83% during the mid-1980s.

A federal judge’s “flawed” decision declaring California’s enforcement of the death penalty unconstitutional will be appealed, state Atty.

A federal judge’s ruling that California’s death penalty is unconstitutional was described by legal experts Wednesday as stunning and unprecedented.

A popular argument among the pro-death penalty crowd is that condemned murderers delay justice for years with “Hail Mary” appeals in desperate attempts to evade execution.