DPIC MID-YEAR REVIEW: At Midpoint of 2019, Death Penalty Use Remains Near Historic Lows

Upcoming Executions

Aug 19, 2019

The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform announced on August 14, 2019 that it has launched an inves­ti­ga­tion into the Department of Justice’s plan to 

Sentencing Alternatives

Aug 16, 2019

A life sen­tence recent­ly imposed in America’s dead­liest death-penal­ty coun­ty illus­trates the impact of Alabama’s 2017 repeal of its…

Intellectual Disability

Aug 15, 2019

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has stayed the exe­cu­tion of Texas d…

Costs

Aug 14, 2019

The high cost of meet­ing its oblig­a­tion to pro­vide con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly-man­dat­ed effec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion for indi­gent defen­dants in cap­i­tal cas­es con­tin­ues to gen­er­ate con­tro­ver­sy in Utah’s fourth largest coun­ty. With two cap­i­tal tri…

Religion

Aug 13, 2019

Sister Helen Prejean, the acclaimed author of Dead Man Walking, has writ­ten a new spir­i­tu­al mem­oir, River of Fire: My Spiritual Journey. The book, released August 13, 2019 by Random House pub­lish­ers, tells the st…

Mental Illness

Aug 12, 2019

Advocates from a vari­ety of back­grounds are urg­ing Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to stop the August 15, 2019 exe­cu­tion of Stephen West (pic­tured), say­ing that West did not com­mit the mur­der and urg­ing the gov­er­nor n…

Arbitrariness

Aug 12, 2019

NEWS — August 15: Tennessee has exe­cut­ed Stephen Michael West after Governor Bill Lee denied his peti­tion for clemen­cy. West was the eleventh per­son exe­cut­ed in the United States in 2019 and the sec­ond in Tennessee.…

Sentencing Alternatives

Aug 09, 2019

A Dallas, Texas, coun­ty com­mis­sion­er has called for a two-year halt on death-penal­ty tri­als, say­ing it would give the coun­ty time to study the finan­cial and eth­i­cal costs of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. On August 6, 2019, Commissio…

Conditions on Death Row

Aug 08, 2019

Oklahoma’s prac­tice of auto­mat­i­cal­ly hous­ing death-row pris­on­ers in soli­tary con­fine­ment and deny­ing them com­mu­nal reli­gious ser­vices is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and inhu­mane, a coali­tion of nation­al and local civ­il rights orga­ni­za­tions s…

Sentencing Data

Aug 07, 2019

Following the trends across most of the Midwest, the death penal­ty is wan­ing in Indiana. Capital pros­e­cu­tions are down, no jury has vot­ed for death since 2013, and the state is clos­ing in on its tenth con­sec­u­tive year with­out an e…