DANVILLE, Ky. – A Kentucky native who has helped overturn dozens of death sentences says it's inevitable that the death penalty will come to an end in the United States.

The death penalty remains legal for now in 31 states including Kentucky, but attorney Stephen Bright says capital punishment is on a steady downward trend toward abolition.

"Some people say 10 years, some people say 20, but I think almost everybody agrees that we will not have the death penalty in another decade or two,” he states. “And, I think there's no question."

Bright is president and senior counsel at the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights.

Last month, he won a new trial for a Georgia death row inmate, when the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 7-to-1 ruling, said the defendant's constitutional rights had been violated at trial.

The 68-year-old Bright has now won all three of the capital cases he has argued before the nation's highest court.

Bright grew up on a farm outside of Danville in the 1960s, in a community that at that time was, in his words, "still segregated for the most part."

Bright says he was influenced by Martin Luther King, Jr.

"One message that Dr. King had was that nothing was more important than eliminating racism and poverty and that that was what we had to be doing, and I found that to be a pretty good way to live my life," he states.

Bright was student body president at the University of Kentucky when protests against the Vietnam War reached their boiling point on campus, and he was arrested.

By 1974, he had graduated from UK's law school and began working for the Appalachian Research and Defense Fund in rural Kentucky.

But Bright says his opposition to the death penalty began well before then.

"I remember when I was a fairly small child hearing about somebody being sentenced to death, and just being absolutely horrified that a modern society would have such a primitive punishment,” he relates. “I just sort of shook my head. It was like burning at the stake or something."

Bright has led the nonprofit legal defense center in Atlanta since the early 1980s, but still maintains a part-time home in his native Boyle County.

He believes the Kentucky Legislature will eventually agree with him that the death penalty takes too long and costs too much.





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A package to improve public safety is moving ahead in the California state Legislature - with a floor vote in the State Assembly on the first bill expected this week.

Assembly Bill 2215 puts into statute that police officers have the discretion to send people arrested for low-level offenses directly to supportive services.

Anthony DiMartino - government affairs director with the nonprofit Californians for Safety and Justice - said sometimes public safety is best served when people avoid arrest and instead get therapy, addiction support or help getting a job.

"We're also hoping to raise awareness that this is something officers can do, and then also encourage partnerships more with officers to look at what's in their community," said DiMartino, "as alternatives to jail booking."

A second bill would increase transparency and accountability on money sent to the counties as part of the Public Safety Realignment.

A third bill would require police officers, prosecuting attorneys and investigators to identify themselves any time they're interviewing a family member of someone killed or severely injured by police.

DiMartino said they also support AB 2499, which would ensure that survivors of violent crime and their family members can take unpaid time off work to address safety concerns and heal.

"We're hoping to broaden the scope a bit," said DiMartino, "and make it more clear that family members of victims are able to also tap into unpaid leave to support their family member that has been a victim."

A fifth bill would make it easier for justice-involved people and crime victims to speak freely during restorative justice programs - by making the communications inadmissible in other legal proceedings.

Missouri went through with its first execution of the year, as Brian Dorsey was put to death last night, just after 6 p.m. CT.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to stop Dorsey's execution. He was convicted of murdering his cousin Sarah Bonnie and her husband Ben nearly 20 years ago.

The advocacy group Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty launched several recent campaigns on Dorsey's behalf to spare his life.

Jenni Gerhauser, a cousin to both Dorsey and Sarah Bonnie, expressed belief in his redemption.

"Brian is more than the worst moment of his life," Gerhauser stressed. "There is so much more to him."

Gerhauser fondly remembered him as fun and charming from their visits during holidays. Dorsey's current lawyers said he was in a drug-induced psychosis when he killed the Bonnies in 2006 and his attorneys at the time had been offered money, preventing them from fighting the death penalty with his guilty plea deal.

Gov. Mike Parson confirmed Monday the state would move forward with Dorsey's death sentence, rejecting a separate request for clemency. More than 70 current and former corrections officers had urged the governor to commute Dorsey's sentence, arguing he had been rehabilitated.

Claudia Boyce, also a cousin in the family, said it should not be a decision for the state to make.

"You know, that's supposed to be God's decision, not ours," Boyce contended.

Dorsey received a lethal injection Tuesday evening. Lethal injection became an option for people on Missouri's death row in 1987, alongside lethal gas.


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Amid overcrowding and unsafe conditions in West Virginia jails, state lawmakers introduced bills that would allow judges to take a 'second look' at an individual's original sentence.

If a court determines they no longer pose a threat to the community, the person could be released, placed on supervision, or receive a shortened sentence.

Sara Whitaker - criminal legal policy analyst with the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy - said West Virginia is one of the few states that has seen its prison population balloon over the past decade, despite declining crime.

She noted that as of last month, more than 500 people in the state were in jail awaiting transfer to a prison.

"As a result, eight out of 10 of the regional jails in the state were beyond capacity," said Whitaker, "with hundreds of people assigned to sleeping on the floor."

The bills failed to advance this session, but Whitaker said advocates are hopeful lawmakers will consider them next year.

The state's jails remain among the deadliest in the country, with at least 91 people losing their lives while incarcerated in the past few years.

According to the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, jail bills cost counties $45 million in 2022.

Nationwide, long sentences have led to growth in the number of older people behind bars.

Whitaker pointed out that 'Second Look' legislation could help the state avoid turning its prisons into nursing homes, and said the number of elderly people in prison has tripled in the past two decades.

"In 2019, West Virginia had to open a dementia unit in one of its prisons," said Whitaker. "There are hospice units across multiple prisons. And experts predict that this is just only going to get worse."

Whitaker added that 'Second Look' policies also offer a way to correct past racial injustice in the criminal legal system.

Black people incarcerated in West Virginia are four times more likely than white people to be serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole, and five times as likely to be serving a life-without-parole sentence.




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