DPIC 2019 Year End Report: Death Penalty Erodes Further As New Hampshire Abolishes and California Imposes Moratorium

Arbitrariness

Jan 24, 2020

In a dra­mat­ic rever­sal made pos­si­ble by changes in court per­son­nel, the Florida Supreme Court has repu­di­at­ed its pri­or deci­sions requir­ing that cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing juries unan­i­mous­ly agree to the death penal­ty before a tri­al judge …

Innocence

Jan 23, 2020

In a case pros­e­cu­tors now describe as a ​“per­fect storm” of injus­tice, Pennsylvania death-row pris­on­er Christopher Williams (pic­tured) and his co-defen…

Victims' Families

Jan 22, 2020

Saying that Nicholas Sutton ​“has gone from a life-tak­er to a life-saver,” lawyers for the Tennessee death-row pris­on­er filed an appli­ca­tion for cle…

Race

Jan 21, 2020

A DPIC analy­sis of exe­cu­tions and new death sen­tences in 2019 has found that even as death penal­ty usage declined across the United States, racial dis­par­i­ties in its appli­ca­tion per­sist­ed. Studies have 

Race

Jan 20, 2020

On Martin Luther King Day, DPIC looks at the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s views on the death penal­ty. Dr. King’s phi­los­o­phy of non-vio­lence had no room for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. In one of his most famous ser­mons, Lov…

Clemency

Jan 17, 2020

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has grant­ed clemen­cy to death-row pris­on­er Jimmy Meders (pic­tur…

Lethal Injection

Jan 16, 2020

A three-judge pan­el of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard near­ly two hours of argu­ment on January 15, 2020 in four con­sol­i­dat­ed cas­es that could deter­mine whether the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment will be able to resume exe­cu­tions in 2020. …

Upcoming Executions

Jan 15, 2020

As Texas pre­pared to car­ry out the first exe­cu­tion of 2020 on January 15, neigh­bor­ing Oklahoma — once the sec­ond most pro­lif­ic exe­cu­tion­er in the United States — marked five years since its last exe­cu­tion. The sta…

Innocence

Jan 14, 2020

Just Mercy, the movie adap­ta­tion of Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) Executive Director Bryan Stevenson’s book of the same…

Innocence

Jan 13, 2020

On January 16, Georgia plans to exe­cute Jimmy Meders (pic­tured in his National Guard uni­form), a man whom jurors say they would have sen­tenced to l…