News & Developments
Innocence
Sep 02, 2020
Books: “When Truth Is All You Have” Tells Story of the Centurian Ministries’ Role in the Modern Innocence Movement
When Truth is All You Have, a new memoir by Centurion Ministries founder Jim McCloskey (pictured) tells the story of what many consider to be the birth of the modern innocence movement. The book, written …
Innocence
Sep 01, 2020
Mississippi Supreme Court Grants New Trial to Eddie Howard, Sentenced to Death by Junk Bite-Mark Evidence
The Mississippi Supreme Court has granted a new trial to death-row prisoner Eddie Lee Howard, Jr. (pictured), finding that the combination of scientifically invalid bite-mark evidence used to convict him and new DNA evidence entit…
Conditions on Death Row
Aug 31, 2020
Coronavirus Prison Fatalities Surpass Two Decades of Executions; COVID-19 Has Killed More California Death Row Prisoners Than the State Has Executed in 27 Years
More prisoners in the United States have died in the coronavirus pandemic than have been executed in the country in past two decades, new prison data shows, and more California death-row prisoners have been killed by the virus…
Executions Overview
Aug 28, 2020
News Brief — Federal Government Executes Keith Nelson
NEWS (8/28/20) — The federal government executed Keith Nelson on August 28. He was the fifth federal prisoner to be executed in 2020. Nelson’s execution had been put on hold several times as a result of preliminary injunct…
Aug 28, 2020
Former Florida Death-Row Prisoner Robert DuBoise Freed After DNA Proves His Innocence
A Florida trial court has freed a former death-row prisoner after local prosecutors said new DNA evidence had proven his innocence of the rape and murder for which he was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death 37 years ago. …
Aug 28, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of August 24, 2020
NEWS (8/27/20) — Mississippi: The Mississippi Supreme Court overturned the conviction and death sentence of Eddie Lee H…
Native Americans
Aug 27, 2020
Ignoring Tribal Sovereignty, Federal Government Executes Native American Death-Row Prisoner Lezmond Mitchell
Over the objections of Native American leaders across the country, the federal government on August 26, 2020 executed Lezmond Mitchell (pictured), the sole Native-American prisoner on federal death row. Mitchell, a Navajo citizen,…
Lethal Injection
Aug 26, 2020
Autopsy Results Provide ‘Virtual Medical Certainty’ that Prisoners will Experience ‘Excruciating Pain’ During Federal Executions
As the federal government began to carry out the second round of executions it has scheduled for 2020, autopsy results from the first round of executions in July suggest to a “virtual medical certainty” that federal death-row prisoners will experi…
Arbitrariness
Aug 25, 2020
California Supreme Court Overturns Scott Peterson’s Death Sentence
Ruling in one of the most sensationalized trials of the early 2000s, the California Supreme Court has overturned the death sentence imposed on Scott Peterson for the murders of his pregnant wife, Laci, and their u…
Costs
Aug 24, 2020
ACLU Lawsuit Seeks Information on Cost and Public Health Risks of Federal Executions
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and American Civil Liberties Foundation have filed a lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) seeking a court order requiring the BOP to disclose how much the federal government…