Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

On December 27, 2024, the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) com­plet­ed a mul­ti-year lethal injec­tion pro­to­col review and announced that instead of the pre­vi­ous three-drug cock­tail, lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions will use a sin­­­gle-drug bar­bi­t­u­ate, pen­to­bar­bi­tal. Ohio was the first state to use pen­to­bar­bi­tal, in the March 2011 exe­cu­tion of Johnnie Roy Baston. State offi­cials now use sin­gle drug pro­to­cols in 14 states, includ­ing Tennessee, as well as in…

On December 13, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the August, 2024 dis­missal of a law­suit that sought to chal­lenge, on First Amendment grounds, a South Carolina Department of Corrections’ (SCDC) pol­i­cy that pro­hibits the pub­li­ca­tion of inter­views between pris­on­ers and the media or mem­bers of the pub­lic. In its deci­sion, the Fourth Circuit cit­ed to Houchins v. KQED, a 1978 Supreme Court rul­ing which held that the U.S. Constitution does…

On December 12, 2024, the Florida Supreme Court heard oral argu­ments in the case of Michael James Jackson, who is chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Florida’s 2023 law that allows for non-unan­i­­­mous jury death sen­tences. Mr. Jackson is rep­re­sent­ed by the ACLU, who argued that the Florida law is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al under the Supreme Court’s 2020 rul­ing in Ramos v. Louisiana, which struck down non-unan­i­­­mous crim­i­nal con­vic­tions. According to the ACLU​’s brief,…

On December 9, 2024, the 10^th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a tem­po­rary stay for Kevin Underwood’s clemen­cy hear­ing sched­uled that same-day with the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, which is lack­ing its full five-mem­ber com­pli­ment after two res­ig­na­tions in recent months and one last minute addi­tion on December 6. This deci­sion marks the sec­ond time Mr. Underwood’s clemen­cy hear­ing has been can­celed. Meanwhile, Mr. Underwood, age 44, is fac­ing a December 19 exe­cu­tion date, and if it were to…

In let­ters released on December 9, 2024, hun­dreds of stake­hold­ers urged President Joe Biden (pic­tured) to com­mute all fed­er­al death sen­tences before his term ends, cit­ing racial bias, sys­temic arbi­trari­ness, and the fail­ure of the fed­er­al death penal­ty to enhance pub­lic safe­ty. This col­lec­tive request reflects broad, bipar­ti­san acknowl­edge­ment of the flaws in the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem and aligns with the nation­al down­ward trend of sup­port for the death penal­ty, now at his­toric lows. 40…

The state of Indiana is sched­uled to car­ry out its first exe­cu­tion in 15 years on December 18, 2024, with the sched­uled exe­cu­tion of Joseph Corcoran (pic­tured). Sentenced to death for the 1997 mur­ders of four peo­ple, includ­ing his broth­er, Mr. Corcoran has a long his­to­ry of seri­ous men­tal ill­ness. He has been diag­nosed with schiz­o­phre­nia, which includes symp­toms of hal­lu­ci­na­tions and delu­sions, and mul­ti­ple experts have tes­ti­fied that he is incom­pe­tent to face exe­cu­tion. Mr. Corcoran holds…

On November 25, 2024, President Joe Biden par­doned two Thanksgiving turkeys, an annu­al, sym­bol­ic tra­di­tion that high­lights the president’s con­sti­tu­tion­al author­i­ty to issue par­dons and com­mu­ta­tions. Now, as President Biden sets to leave office in January 2025, 60 mem­bers of Congress and many oth­ers are urg­ing him to grant clemen­cy to the 40 men cur­rent­ly on fed­er­al death row. During his 2020 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, President Biden said he would work to abol­ish the fed­er­al death penalty but…