On November 4, 2024, the United States Supreme Courts released its order in the case of Hamm v. Smith, 604 U.S. _​_​_​(2024). The peti­tion for cer­tio­rari, filed by the State of Alabama last year, involved a pris­on­er named Joseph Clifton Smith whose death sen­tence was vacat­ed in 2021 after a United States dis­trict court found he had intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. Mr. Smith had tak­en five IQ tests, four of which placed his IQ in the low- to mid-70s, the range gen­er­al­ly accept­ed by experts to be…

Attorneys for South Carolina death row pris­on­er Richard Moore (pic­tured) filed a clemen­cy peti­tion with Governor Henry McMaster, ask­ing him to com­mute his sen­tence to life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. Mr. Moore has gar­nered sup­port from a wide range of indi­vid­u­als, includ­ing the for­mer direc­tor of South Carolina Department of Corrections Jon Ozmint. In a let­ter to Gov. McMaster, Mr. Ozmint writes about how Mr. Moore’s ​“sto­ry of redemp­tion” and good behav­ior will allow him to…

On October 24, 2024, the Kentucky Supreme Court denied a request by the Attorney General and the Kentucky Department of Corrections (KDOC) to remove an injunc­tion cur­rent­ly pro­hibit­ing exe­cu­tions in Kentucky. In 2010, a Franklin County Circuit judge ordered a tem­po­rary injunc­tion of all exe­cu­tions due to con­cerns regard­ing numer­ous aspects of Kentucky’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col, includ­ing con­cerns about the men­tal sta­tus and intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty sta­tus of death row pris­on­ers and the state’s…

The Death Penalty Information Center is pleased to share a pow­er­ful new resource illus­trat­ing the dire con­se­quences of inad­e­quate legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion in cap­i­tal cas­es: a data­base of cas­es that were dis­missed because they were not filed by the statu­to­ry dead­line. The list of cas­es, devel­oped by Professor Eric M. Freedman (pic­tured) and law stu­dent Paul Sessa of Hofstra University School of Law, will be updat­ed by DPI going for­ward. Mr. Sessa and Professor Freedman found that from 1996 to…

On October 28, 2024, hear­ings began in Kansas’ Wyandotte County District Court regard­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s death penal­ty and its cap­i­tal jury selec­tion process. A coali­tion of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, the ACLU of Kansas, the Kansas Death Penalty Unit, and the law firms Hogan Lovells and Ali & Lockwood brought the chal­lenge. The team argues that the death penal­ty, which is rarely used in Kansas, is ​“arbi­trary, racial­ly dis­crim­i­na­to­ry, unre­li­able, and…