News & Developments
Native Americans
Jul 09, 2020
Supreme Court Issues Sweeping Decision Affirming Tribal Sovereignty, Vacates Oklahoma Conviction and Death Sentence
The United States Supreme Court has vacated the conviction of a Native American death-row prisoner in Oklahoma, giving dramatic effect to a sweeping new decision that affirmed the sovereignty of the the Muscogee (Creek) Na…
Intellectual Disability
Jul 08, 2020
U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Review Three Cases on Scope of Protections Against Executing the Intellectually Disabled
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to step in to resolve festering disputes about the scope of the protections its prior rulings afford to intellectually disabled death-row prisoners. On July 2, 2020, the Court denied petitions t…
Sentencing Alternatives
Jul 07, 2020
74-Year-Old ‘Golden State Killer’ Joseph DeAngelo Pleads Guilty to 13 Murders and Rapes, Gets 11 Life Sentences
Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. (pictured), the “Golden State Killer,” whom prosecutors had one year earlier held out as a “poster child for the death penalty,” has pleaded guilty to 13 counts each of murder and rape in exchange for mul…
Innocence
Jul 06, 2020
Kareem Johnson Becomes Nation’s 170th Death-Row Exoneree Since 1973
Former Pennsylvania death-row prisoner Kareem Johnson has been exonerated, thirteen years after being wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death by a Philadelphia jury. On July 1, 2020, the Phila…
Innocence
Jul 02, 2020
DPIC 2020 MID-YEAR REVIEW: Pandemic and Continuing Historic Decline Produce Record-Low Death Penalty Use
New death sentences and executions were at historic lows in the first half of 2020, the Death Penalty Information Center reported in its
Conditions on Death Row
Jul 01, 2020
Four Dead, More Than 200 Infected on California Death Row as COVID-19 ‘Tears Through’ San Quentin
Four California death-row prisoners are dead and more than 210 have been infected in a coronavirus outbreak that news reports say is “tearing through” the nation’s largest death row. Fueled by an influx of infected prison…
Arbitrariness
Jul 01, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of June 29, 2020
NEWS (7/2/20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court denied relief to death-row prisoner Lero…
Race
Jun 30, 2020
New Podcast: Henderson Hill and North Carolina’s Historic Racial Justice Act Rulings
In the June 2020 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Henderson Hill (pictured), Senior Counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union Capital Punishment Project, speaks with Death Penalty Information Center Executive Directo…
United States Supreme Court
Jun 29, 2020
U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Hear Execution Protocol Case, Removing Barrier to Resumption of Federal Executions
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a challenge to the federal execution protocol, removing a potential major obstacle to the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) plan to resume federal executions after a 17-year hiatus. The deci…
Intellectual Disability
Jun 29, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of June 22, 2020
NEWS (6/26/20) — California: A California trial judge has accepted the January 29 recommendation by a Tulare County jury to sentence Hernan Rodriguez to death. The death sentence is the 12th DPIC is aware of so fa…