DPIC Analysis: 13 Texas Death Warrants Raise Troubling Questions About U.S. Execution Practices

Race

Nov 19, 2019

Two civ­il rights orga­ni­za­tions have filed a class action law­suit against Mississippi pros­e­cu­tor Doug Evans (pic­tured) seek­ing an end to what they describe as a ​“pol­i­cy, cus­tom, and usage of racial­ly discriminatory…

Arbitrariness

Nov 18, 2019

A Tennessee death-row pris­on­er who is fac­ing exe­cu­tion in ear­ly December is seek­ing to reverse his 1992 con­vic­tion and death sen­tence in light of new infor­ma­tion that a juror who served on his case failed to dis­close that she was …

Innocence

Nov 15, 2019

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed the exe­cu­tion of Rodney Reed (pic­tured) on November 15, 2019, direct­ing the Bastrop County dis­trict court to review Reed’s claims that pros­e­cu­tors sup­pressed excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence and pres…

New Voices

Nov 14, 2019

Reform pros­e­cu­tors made fur­ther inroads into the admin­is­tra­tion of American law enforce­ment, sweep­ing coun­ty elec­tions in Northern Virginia and gain­ing con­trol of prosecutor’s offices in Pennsylvania and California. Progressive pros­e­cu­tors rode a …

Victims' Families

Nov 13, 2019

Hundreds of for­mer state and fed­er­al judges, pros­e­cu­tors, law enforce­ment and cor­rec­tions offi­cials, and fam­i­ly mem­bers of homi­cide vic­tims have signed on to a series of let­ters urg­ing the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to halt the five fed­er­al exe­cu­tions sch…

Innocence

Nov 12, 2019

At least 166 wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed death-row pris­on­ers have been exon­er­at­ed since the death penal­ty was rein­sti­tut­ed in the United States in 1973. That num­ber, how­ev­er, may only scr…

Religion

Nov 11, 2019

A fed­er­al dis­trict court has grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion to a Buddhist death-row pris­on­er in Texas over alle­ga­tions that the state is dis­crim­i­na­to­ri­ly deny­ing him access to reli­gious ser­vices that would be avail­able to Christian p…

Sentencing Alternatives

Nov 08, 2019

On March 16, 2017, say­ing that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is ​“not in the best inter­ests of this com­mu­ni­ty or in the best inter­ests of jus­tice,” Orange/​Osceola County (FL) state pros­e­cu­tor Aramis Ayala announced that her o…

Mental Illness

Nov 07, 2019

Texas exe­cut­ed Justen Hall (pic­tured) on November 6, 2019 in the sec­ond Texas case of the year to present sig­nif­i­cant ques­tions as to a prisoner’s com­pe­ten­cy to be executed.Hall, a men­tal­ly ill death-row pr…

Intellectual Disability

Nov 06, 2019

After being reversed twice by the United States Supreme Court, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) has resen­tenced intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled death-row pris­on­er Bobby James Moore to life in prison. In a three‑p…