Stephen A. Cooper, at The Blogs

Jul 31, 2024, 7:37 AM

How Much Do You Know About Alabama’s Execution Captain for Nitrogen-Gassings?

How Much Do You Know About Alabama’s Execution Captain for Nitrogen-Gassings? Recently, as was reported by NBC News in “Unredacted Alabama court documents shed new light on execution procedures,” everyone found out more than has been previously known—and more than Alabama officials...

Apr 18, 2024, 7:50 AM

Good Jews Must Actively Oppose the Death Penalty

Good people must oppose the death penalty, and I submit good Jewish people are especially obligated to do so because of our faith. I have personal experience fighting the death penalty as a capital habeas attorney in Alabama, and, afterward,...

Apr 8, 2024, 4:01 PM

Good People Oppose the Death Penalty

Reviewing, in July 1970, Sir Walter Moberly’s book “The Ethics of Punishment” (London: Faber & Faber 1968), Sir Donald Neil MacCormick, the late Scottish legal philosopher, politician, professor—and former member of the European Parliament—wrote: Moberly’s book “is a masterpiece...

Mar 31, 2024, 2:23 PM

Houses Made on Death Row

I have powerful memories and prized possessions from when I worked in Montgomery, Alabama, defending men sentenced to death. Prominent among these I count a pair of miniature houses that my former client, Joseph Smith, made for my wife...

Mar 28, 2024, 5:16 AM

Growing Away from God by Executing Michael Smith

I don’t often invoke God when arguing for death penalty abolition—like Sister Helen Prejean—even if I did recently join forces with a Jewish cantor to argue that “Jews must speak out against Alabama’s planned nitrogen gas executions.” But when it...

About Me

Stephen Cooper is a former D.C. public defender who worked as an assistant federal public defender in Alabama between 2012 and 2015. He has contributed to numerous magazines and newspapers in the United States and overseas. He writes full-time and lives in Woodland Hills, California. Follow him on "X"/Twitter @SteveCooperEsq

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