Methods of Execution

Sep 25, 2020

A new National Public Radio (NPR) analy­sis of more than 200 autop­sies of death-row pris­on­ers exe­cut­ed by lethal injec­tion has found that 84% of those exe­cut­ed showed evi­dence of pul­monary ede­ma, a con­di­tion in which a person’s lun…

Representation

Sep 24, 2020

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has denied habeas cor­pus relief to three Georgia death-row pris­on­ers in a series of opin­ions that nar­row­ly inter­pret­ed the scope of a defendant’s right to effecti…

Federal Death Penalty

Sep 23, 2020

The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment con­duct­ed its sixth exe­cu­tion in ten weeks on September 22, putting William Emmett LeCroy (pic­tured) to death amid con­tin­u­ing chal­lenges to the fed­er­al exe­cu­tion pro­to­col and to car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions durin…

Executions Overview

Sep 22, 2020

Documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act show that the fed­er­al government’s choice to bring hun­dreds of peo­ple to the fed­er­al prison com­plex in Terre Haute, Indiana to car­ry out…

Arbitrariness

Sep 21, 2020

A study of 40 years of Texas death sen­tences has found that the like­li­hood that a defen­dant accused of a death-eli­gi­ble mur­der will be sen­tenced to death is three times greater if the case involves a white female vic­tim. The study, 

United States Supreme Court

Sep 19, 2020

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died. The 87-year-old jus­tice, who repeat­ed­ly expressed skep­ti­cism about the death penal­ty but nev­er took the step of say­ing it was inher­ent­ly uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, suc­cumbed to pancreatic…

Juveniles

Sep 18, 2020

The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment intends to exe­cute Christopher Vialva (pic­tured) on September 24, 2020, the first time in more than 70 years it will have put any teenage offend­er to death. But accord­ing to a promi­nent cog­ni­tive neuropsycho…

Innocence

Sep 17, 2020

A Florida man and an Arkansas woman, con­vict­ed of mur­der in sep­a­rate cas­es involv­ing junk sci­ence and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, have been exon­er­at­ed, decades after being wrong­ful­ly cap­i­tal­ly prosecuted. 

Upcoming Executions

Sep 16, 2020

NEWS (9/​15/​20) — Texas: A Bexar County tri­al court judge has issued an order with­draw­ing the death war…