Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

On February 28, 2025, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey com­mut­ed the death sen­tence of Robin​‘Rocky’ Dion Myers to Life Without Parole (LWOP). Myers was con­vict­ed in the 1991 mur­der of Ludie Mae Tucker in Decatur, Alabama. His jury rec­om­mend­ed that he be sen­tenced to LWOP, but the judge in his case over­rode the jury’s rec­om­men­da­tion and hand­ed down a death sen­tence. The prac­tice of judi­cial over­ride was abol­ished in Alabama in 2017. In her state­ment, Gov. Ivey repeated her…

In the February 2025 episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with three experts on California’s Racial Justice Act (RJA). Natasha Minsker, an attor­ney and con­sul­tant, for­mer­ly of the ACLU, speaks on the his­to­ry of the RJA and the impe­tus for its pas­sage. Genevie Gold, research and writ­ing fel­low at the Office of the State Public Defender (OSPD), describes the process that an RJA claim fol­lows through the legal sys­tem, and…

On February 19, 2025, in new fil­ings, Robert Roberson returned to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) with a request for relief, pre­sent­ing sub­stan­tial new evi­dence that sup­ports his claim of actu­al inno­cence. Mr. Roberson’s lat­est habeas appli­ca­tion incor­po­rates new expert opin­ions and ref­er­ences sci­en­tif­ic advance­ments that have emerged since October 2024, when the CCA acknowl­edged in a sim­i­lar case that the sci­en­tif­ic foun­da­tion for​“Shaken Baby”…

On February 11, 2025, the Alabama House of Representatives vot­ed 86 – 5, with nine absten­tions, in favor of a bill that would expand the use of the death penal­ty to those con­vict­ed of the rape or sodomy of a child under the age of 12. This bill will be head­ed to the state Senate. If passed, the law would direct­ly vio­late United States Supreme Court prece­dent estab­lished in Kennedy V. Louisiana (2008), which found the death penal­ty an uncon­sti­tu­tion­al form of…

On January 30, 2025, the Montana House of Representatives reject­ed by a vote of 51 – 49 House Bill 205 (HB 205), which would have mod­i­fied the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col. The bill sought to remove lan­guage in the Montana lethal injec­tion pro­to­col that requires the use of an​“ultra-fast act­ing” drug in com­bi­na­tion with a​“chem­i­cal par­a­lyt­ic agent” and replace it with broad­er ter­mi­nol­o­gy that would allow for the use of any​“sub­stance or sub­stances in a lethal…

On January 28, 2025, the Florida Legislature passed an immi­gra­tion bill that includes a pro­vi­sion man­dat­ing the auto­mat­ic impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty for​“unau­tho­rized aliens” con­vict­ed of a cap­i­tal offense, despite long­stand­ing U.S. prece­dent and inter­na­tion­al law pro­hibit­ing manda­to­ry death sen­tences. The bill was intro­duced dur­ing a short spe­cial leg­isla­tive ses­sion called by Governor Ron DeSantis (pic­tured), leav­ing lit­tle to no time for public…

Retired fed­er­al mag­is­trate Judge David Duncan, who was hired and then abrupt­ly fired by Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs to review the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col, con­tin­ues to raise sig­nif­i­cant con­cerns about the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col. In an inter­view with ABC15, Judge Duncan high­light­ed issues with the chain of com­mand for lethal injec­tion drugs, trans­paren­cy, and the state doc­u­men­ta­tion process.​“It’s shock­ing irony that one of my tasks was…