SF News Spencer Brasure, Killer In Infamous 90s Torture-Murder, Found Dead In San Quentin Cell Condemned man Spencer Brasure, who had lived on San Quentin's death row since 1998, was found dead in his cell of unpublicized causes early Thursday morning, according to prison officials.
SF News As California Executions Hang In The Balance, Man Convicted Of Oakland Sleepover Murder Sentenced To Death Even as the future of California's death penalty hangs on two November ballot measures, a judge ruled Wednesday that the man convicted of a high-profile double murder in the East Bay should be
SF News 9th Circuit Reverses CA Judge Who Ruled Delays In Death Penalty 'Cruel And Unusual' A panel of three judges appointed to the bench of the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals by Democrats has reversed a July 2014 decision by a US District Judge that ruled the
SF News 9th Circuit Hears Arguments In Constitutionality Of Death Penalty In California An appeal from California Attorney General Kamala Harris, in a case pertaining to delays in California's death penalty system, went before a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit today in Pasadena. Harris is
SF News Hatchet Crime: Berkeley Couple Charged With Murder Of Former Bandit 28-year-old Michael Diggs and his 40-year-old girlfriend Kneitawnye Sessoms were charged with murder in Alameda Superior Court Thursday for allegedly killing a 54-year-old former bandit known as the "Noteman" in his home with
SF News Report: The Night Stalker Made At Least Two Escape Attempts From San Quentin Though the notorious Night Stalker killer has been dead for nearly a year, a new report proves that he hasn't lost the power to scare us. A source now says that the serial
SF News Crass Murderer Asks Jurors To Flip Coin To Decide Fate When Nathan Burris isn't offending the family of the woman she murdered, he's asking jurors to flip a coin in order to decide his fate. Burris, if you recall, was convicted last week
SF News Poll: Should California Abolish The Death Penalty This November? When Californians head to their polling places to cast their big Obama vs. Romney votes this election season, they will also have the first opportunity, in over three decades, to abolish the practice
SF News Judge Mathis Speaks Out On the Execution of Troy Davis Convicted in the 1989 murder of an off-duty Savannah police officer, Troy Davis presented affidavits of seven of the nine witnesses at his trial who have since recanted their testimony. Davis never received
SF News California May Proceed With Executing People In a court filing yesterday, the State of California (Jerry Brown's office to be exact) said they had obtained a fresh supply of twelve grams of the lethal injection drug sodium thiopental with
SF News State Supreme Court Blocks Albert Greenwood Brown's Execution Albert Greenwood Brown had yet another stay of execution handed to him, this time care of the California Supreme Court. The Chronicle reports: "The justices unanimously denied the state's request to allow new
SF News (UPDATED) Death Penalty Opponents Will Gather to Demonstrate San Quentin Execution Update: Protests moved to Thursday night. If all goes according to plan, Albert Greenwood Brown will be the first San Quentin inmate to die since 2006. He was convicted of raping and murdering
SF News Next Wednesday: California's First Execution Since 2006 U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel has cleared the way for California's first execution since 2006 "after the state revised its lethal injection procedures." Albert Greenwood Brown, convicted of raping and murdering
SF News DA Kamala Harris Won't Seek Death Against Ramos Proving to be a woman of her word, San Francisco DA Kamala Harris refused to kowtow to public pressure that demanded the death penalty in the murder of a man and his two
SF News Field Poll: California Democrats More Tolerant Than in 1977, Republicans Less The Field Poll came out with their August 2009 California Opinion Index (PDF), which indicates that California Democrats and Non-Partisans have become more progressive on hot topics in the past thirty years, whereas
SF News Death Penalty Upheld For Klass Killer Today, San Francisco's California Supreme Court made the decision to uphold the death penalty of Richard Allen Davis, the man convicted of kidnapping and killing 12-year-old Polly Klass at knife point during her
SF News Former Gang Member Could Get First Federal Death Sentence in SF in 60 Years A federal jury found former Page Street Gang member Dennis Cyrus guilty of drug racketeering and three counts of murder, including the killing of federal witness Ray Jimmerson in 2002. The Obama administration's
SF News Oklahoma, Where the Wind Comes Sweepin' Down the Plain Wha? Oklahoma's Senator, often seen as one of the loopiest one, sent a letter to the to the U.S. Transportation Department wondering if any of those funds Gavin is using to give
SF News Eritrean Community Crime Shocker Murder victims-- who died after being shot via open fire in a third floor apartment-- include a widowed mother named Winta T. Mehari, 28, of Berkeley, her brother Yonas Mehari, 17, who lived
SF News Fiona v. Janet: Bring It On! Anyone who's played one-on-one against Mayor Newsom's gotta have some game! Look at the fire in Fiona's eyes in this picture! Bring! It! On! After a fairly moribund start (for our purposes, "moribund"
SF News Clemency Denied As many legal observers expected, Gov. Schwarzenegger denied Stanley "Tookie" Williams's request for clemency, stating that (.pdf) there was strong evidence supporting the jury's guilty verdict, and that he doesn't really believe that
SF News Remember When I Said I'd Kill You Last? I lied. Clemency has been denied in the pending excution of death-row inmate Donald Beardslee, and the first execution in California since January of 2002 should go on as scheduled tonight at 12:01am. The
SF News SFist Blotter Did you hear sirens last night? There was a high speed chase starting from Turk and Gough in San Francisco around 12:15 a.m. that went for 30 minutes, reached speeds of
SF News Jury Recommends Death We were going to be all like, "we're sooooo above the whole Scott Peterson trial when there's a civil war in the Sudan," but okay, we'll confess, we were frantically hitting the refresh
SF News WWJD? Okay, so SFist isn't always as impartial as we'd like to be. We're bloggers - our prejudices are bound to shine through from time to time (well, okay, always). With all this talk
