News & Commentary

On Tuesday, January 10th, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a confirmation hearing for the position of U.S. Attorney General. Committee members should leave no stone unturned when questioning Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III of Alabama, President-elect Trump's nominee for the position of attorney general.

ACLU of Delaware has confirmed that the news you have read is true: Powell v. State set the precedent for Rauf v. State to be applied retroactively, meaning Death Row will be a thing of the past and those who were living there will serve life sentences. You may recall that the fate of those on Death Row was not clear after the Delaware Supreme Court ruled the state's death penalty statue unconstitutional in August (Rauf). Now, we know that they will not be executed.

Oral argument is scheduled for next week in State v. Powell, where the issue is whether the Delaware Supreme Court’s recent decision in State v. Rauf, holding Delaware’s death penalty statute unconstitutional, should be applied to the 12 men now on death row.

This summer, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero created a comprehensive report stating that President-Elect Trump's statements and policy proposals would blatantly violate the inalienable rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. The report, Donald Trump: A One-Man Constitutional Crisis, is available on the ACLU website.

Attorney General Matt Denn will not appeal the Delaware Supreme Court ruling on the death penalty, but he is still looking to execute the 13 men currently on death row.

ACLU-DE Executive Director responds to an editorial regarding the her statements on the end of the death penalty in Delaware.

The Delaware Supreme Court has decided that the Delaware death penalty statute is unconstitutional based on their understanding of the Sixth Amendment—trial by jury—and the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Hurst v. Florida. The ACLU of Delaware applauds this decision.

Matthew Segal, Legal Director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, writes about systemic problems in cases with police misconduct.

This post is part of our Summer 2016 issue of Connection, our quarterly newsletter. To read the whole newsletter, click here.