News & Developments
Innocence
Sep 30, 2020
NEW VOICES: Oklahoma Legislator Says Get the Death Penalty Right or Don’t Do It
A self-described tough-on-crime Oklahoma state representative says has serious doubts as to the reliability of the Sooner State’s death penalty. “As taxpayers and voters,” Republican State Representative Kevin McDu…
International
Sep 29, 2020
Kazakhstan Signs Global Treaty to Abolish Death Penalty
The Republic of Kazakhstan has joined the ranks of nations that have formally committed to abolishing the death penalty. On September 23, 2020, in conjunction with the 75th session of the United Nations Genera…
Race
Sep 28, 2020
North Carolina Supreme Court Restores Life Sentences to Three Prisoners Whose Death Sentences Violated Racial Justice Act
The North Carolina Supreme Court has ordered that three African American death-row prisoners who had proven that their death sentences violated the state’s since repealed Racial Justice Act (RJA) must be resenten…
Sep 28, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of September 21, 2020
NEWS (9/24/20) — Ohio: The Ohio Supreme Court has upheld the conviction and death sentence of Terry Lee Froman for a Se…
Methods of Execution
Sep 25, 2020
NPR Investigation of Lethal-Injection Autopsies Finds Executed Prisoners Experience Sensations of Suffocation and Drowning
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
Eleventh Circuit Upholds Death Sentences, Absolves Failures by Court-Appointed Counsel in Three Georgia Death-Penalty Cases
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
Federal Government Conducts Sixth and Seventh Executions Amid Continuing Litigation Over COVID-19 and the Legality of Its Execution Protocol
The federal government conducted its sixth and seventh executions in ten weeks on September 22 and 24, putting William Emmett LeCroy (pictured) and Christopher Vialva to death amid continuing challenges to the fed…
Executions Overview
Sep 22, 2020
ACLU: Documents Show Federal Executions Likely Caused Prison COVID-19 Outbreak
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…
Innocence
Sep 21, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of September 14, 2020
NEWS (9/17/20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court has denied post-conviction relief to Ken Lott, retroactiv…
Arbitrariness
Sep 21, 2020
Study Finds Defendants Accused of Killing White Women Are 3 Times More Likely to be Sentenced to Death in Texas
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,
