On October 15, 2024, the Idaho Department of Corrections (IDOC) amend­ed its exe­cu­tion pro­to­col and facil­i­ties to enable staff to place a cen­tral intra­venous line, if nec­es­sary, to deliv­er lethal injec­tion drugs to a pris­on­er. IDOC now has a new exe­cu­tion prepa­ra­tion room in which venous access would be estab­lished pri­or to trans­fer­ring the pris­on­er to the exe­cu­tion cham­ber. This change, and accom­pa­ny­ing prison ren­o­va­tions this past sum­mer, came after the February 28, 2024 failed exe­cu­tion of…

Update: The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemen­cy for Robert Roberson on October 16,…

Joseph Giarratano (pic­tured, cen­ter) died on October 6, 2024. He had spent near­ly forty years in prison, many of them on death row, for a crime he main­tained he did not com­mit. During his time behind bars, he sought to improve prison con­di­tions and secure access to attor­neys. After being paroled in 2017, he worked at the University of Virginia’s Innocence Project, con­tin­u­ing his work to assist incarcerated…

On October 11, 2024 the Embassies of France and Germany host­ed a dis­cus­sion on the ques­tion of inno­cence and the death penal­ty at the res­i­dence of the French Ambassador in Washington, D.C. Panelists includ­ed Herman Lindsey, a death row exoneree and Executive Director of Witness to Innocence; Vanessa Potkin, Director of Special Litigation at the Innocence Project; and Emmjolee Mendoza Waters, Director of the Death Penalty Abolition Program at Catholic Mobilizing Network. The approx­i­mate­ly 75…

In hon­or of Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept. 15-Oct. 15), DPI is post­ing a week­ly fea­ture on Hispanic or Latino/​a peo­ple who have had a sig­nif­i­cant impact on the death penal­ty in the U.S. The final entry in this series is U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia…