Capital Punishment

Truck Stop Cafe Tonight Features One of Most Popular Death Row Meals: Fried Chicken

Jake Godby of Humphry Slocombe has been doing Truck Stop Cafe for a while, a semi-monthly pop-up at Mission gay bar Truck where he serves the "Last Meal Blue-Plate Specials" -- the final request of death row prisoners. Tonight the spotlight's on the Lonely Hearts Killer Martha Beck, whose last meal ... More >>

Prop. 34: California Keeps Death Penalty, Once Again Shows It's Not as Liberal as Some Think

California: that big blue state that handed President Obama 54 free electoral college points and gave his campaign more money than any other state. The state that is on the brink of Democratic supermajorities in both the state House and state Senate and contains a voting population in which register ... More >>

California Officials Debate Least Inhumane Way to Kill

The current method for executing people in California is as such: First pentobarbital, an anesthetic, knocks the person unconscious; next, pancuronium bromide, a muscle relaxant, paralyzes the body; and then potassium chloride, whose most common uses are as fertilizer and for state-sponsored killing ... More >>

Californians to Decide Whether to Abolish the Death Penalty

The Golden State will finally get a chance to kill the death penalty.A measure to abolish capital punishment in California qualified for the November ballot, Secretary of State Debra Bowen confirmed yesterday evening. The measure -- dubbed the SAFE California Act -- calls for doing away with death r ... More >>

People Aren't Killing Each Other as Much in California

Fewer opporuntities to say "redrum" in California ​Despite all the horrible crises we read about every day (budget, education, etc), Californians have much to be proud of -- the scenic beauty, the diverse culture, and get this: We aren't killing each other as much as we used to. According to Gener ... More >>

California Death Sentences at 33-Year Low

​Fewer death sentences were handed down by California courts during the first half of 2011 than during any six-month period since 1978, according to a new report by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.Just three defendants were sentenced to death from January to June of this ... More >>

MS-13 Members Indicted for Racketeering and Murder Charges

Three more members face conspiracy charges. ​A federal grand jury indicted three alleged MS-13 gang members on Wednesday for conspiracy to commit murder and racketeering. The indictment comes in addition to the 24 alleged MS-13 members already facing conspiracy charges after the three-year investi ... More >>

New Questions Raised About State's Imported Lethal Injection Drugs

​Newly released documents raise questions about the quality of drugs imported from abroad by state corrections officials to carry out lethal injections, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.The documents, obtained by the ACLU through Freedom of Information Act (FO ... More >>

Gascon Says He Will Seek The Death Penalty In Cases That 'Warrant' It

Death Penalty Supporter​It's no secret that San Francisco's District Attorney's Office and The Police Department have a long history of tension and soured relations, even long before the fajitagate incident when the famously left-wing Terence Hallinan indicted the top brass of the SFPD.Things didn ... More >>

Polly Klaas' Father Calls Woman Dating His Daughter's Killer An 'Extremely Disturbed Girl'

A familiar face?​A few SF Weekly readers have sounded off about our cover story last week, remarking that Samantha Spiegel, the 19-year-old art student from San Francisco who says she'd consider having a baby with Polly Klaas' murderer, bears a troubling resemblance to Klaas herself.Spiegel does h ... More >>

Death Row Rebuild Bidding Under Way

He may soon be enjoying spacious new digs. Or maybe not. ​It's a miracle that the grueling and litigious process required to redevelop one's property in Marin County hasn't led to enraged neighbors landing on death row. Fittingly, the process to redevelop death row appears to be no easier. The sta ... More >>

Isaac Espinoza's Sad Legacy

Isaac Espinoza, 1974-2004​Most of us never met Isaac Espinoza, but we owe him more than we can say. In 2004, the 29-year-old decorated cop was pointlessly gunned down by David Hill, a young man with a lengthy criminal history.  Espinoza repeatedly turned down cushier beats than Bayview. His d ... More >>

Dianne Feinstein Was Against Kamala Harris' 'Strong Track Record' Before She Was For It

An unlikely ally?​In an effort to combat the mudslide of Republican money pouring into California to fund attack ads on San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris in the California Attorney General's race, the Harris campaign today released a "statement" from U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein."Kamala ... More >>

Executions Stalled Across Country Due to Drug Shortage

​It turns out that California isn't the only one making life-or-death-penalty decisions based on the availability of the drug sodium thiopental -- the first of three drugs used to render the inmate unconscious before injecting other drugs that stop the heart and breathing. (The manufacturer's desc ... More >>

Albert Brown To Be Executed Just Three Hours Before Drugs Expire

Armin Kübelbeck​Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has delayed the lethal injection of Albert Brown to 9 p.m. Thursday night. That will give Schwarzenegger time to consider Brown's clemency case and let the appeals court weigh in. It's also just hours prior to when the prison's supply of the first of the ... More >>

George Hatton Smithey, Found Hanged in San Quentin Cell, Had Just Beaten Death Penalty

George Hatton Smithey beat the death penalty -- but instead died by his own hand​George Hatton Smithey, the San Quentin death row prisoner found hanged with bedsheets in his cell Saturday, had just won a legal motion to have the possibility of the death penalty eliminated -- horrifying the survivo ... More >>

George Huggins Charged with Murdering Jinghong Kang for $17, Could Face Death

Oakland Police DepartmentGeorge Huggins may face the death penalty if convicted of Jinghong Kang's killing​George Huggins -- the 24-year-old Oakland man accused of pulling the trigger in a murder that sickened the nation -- may face the death penalty if found guilty. Huggiins, along with his 33-ye ... More >>

Union Boss: 'No Way' Kamala Harris Gets Cops' Endorsement for Attorney General

Tyra Banks is supporting Kamala Harris. The city's cops are not. ​California Watch has a good story up today on the role the state's influential police unions will play in deciding the attorney general's race between Kamala Harris and Steve Cooley. As reporter Timothy Sandoval notes, San Francisco ... More >>

Stalker threatens D.A. (an opponent of the death penalty) with the electric chair

Poll: Harris Is AG Front-Runner -- Until Pollster Starts Talking Dirty

With how much salt shall we take Ted Lieu's new poll?​It's not every day that a political candidate eagerly publicizes a survey revealing he's polling in the single-digits and trails the leader by double-digits. And yet, this has turned out to not be a typical Attorney General's race. Would-be AG ... More >>

New DNA Evidence in Old Homicide Case Points to the 'Night Stalker'

Anna McCarthyDid you hang around the 'Loin in 1984? Does this face ring a bell?​On April 10, 1984, San Francisco police found 9-year-old Mei Leung's dead body in the basement area of the residential hotel at 765 O'Farrell Street where she lived with her family. Her 8-year-old brother was the last ... More >>

S.F. Gay Grifters No Longer Face Death Penalty in Palm Springs Case, Prosecutor Says

Kaushal NiroulaFour San Franciscan alleged con men accused in Palm Springs of robbing and killing a 74-year-old retiree can breathe easier following a meeting last week with prosecutors, according to City News Service ace Jessica E. Davis. Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco had filed cha ... More >>

Alleged SF Con Man Possessed By Supernatural Evil, Attorney Claims

Lawyers say the darndest things... Kaushal Niroula, 27, the alleged ringleader of a group of purported San Francisco con men facing capital murder charges in Palm Springs isn't merely a criminal, says a Hawaii attorney representing a woman claiming to be one of Niroula's victims. Rather, ... More >>

Death Penalty DA Vows End of the Line for Gay Grifter Murder Suspects

Rod PachecoRiverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco, a former death penalty prosecutor who ran for office on a law-and-order ticket, vowed he would end a purported gay grifter crime spree carried out by a band of San Francisco murder suspects. Sometime boyfriends Kaushal Niroula, 27, and Danie ... More >>

Wear Orange

Tupac's Fam to Broke Death Row: Get Off My Nuts!

News of the Hour -- The Lethal Injection Cocktail, Mike Webb Found Dead, Ted Nugent Found Irritating

Breaking Down Walls

A liberal intellectual and a right-winger on Death Row discover they have much in common

In Pen and Ink

They are unschooled, undisciplined, and often unpopular, but it’s outsider artists like the convict who drew this who can sometimes shape mainstream culture

No Justice, No Peace ... Whatever

In the country’s putative activist capital, all the protests and rallies may do more to sow apathy than draw people to the cause.

Live to Tell

Even big-name stars can't overpower the stories of exonerated death row inmates

Dreams Deferred

Where to catch Montel Williams, Brian Dennehy, and Aidan Quinn together in a single play

San Quentin Blues

The prison guards' union angrily ripped the rug from under the governor in February

Life in Hell

Denis Johnson's third Cassandra play is a long, dark -- and hilarious -- journey

Career Noir

Pamela Olsen once planned parties for Pacific Heights matrons. Now she interviews prostitutes and murderers as a private eye.

The Agony and the Ecstasy

A walk through the "Torture Exhibition" can be a terror or a turn-on, depending on your point of view

Dead Woman Walking

The true story of lesbian serial killer Aileen Wuornos becomes an opera

A Walk in the Dark

The rest of the country is re-appraising the death penalty; California sues to keep a minister from comforting those facing execution

Dead Head

Mr. Death

South to the Future

Mumia Abu-Jamal Changes Name, Urges Supporters to Expand Campaign

Dead Man Not Praying

The state wants to deny religious counsel immediately before executions. But why?

Night + Day

Unspun

Shouldn't We Just Kill This Dog?

Does San Francisco's pit-bull testing program put good dogs in good homes -- or put lethal land sharks back on the street?

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Sister of Mercy

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Hard Labour

Love's Labour's Lost imprisons with its verse; My Piece of the Sky incarcerates the audience