Entries by Death Penalty Information Center
News
Aug 06, 2020
Execution Lawsuits Settle in Arizona and California, as Prisoners Renew Lethal-Injection Protocol Challenge in Oklahoma
Long-running execution lawsuits have settled in Arizona and California, as a renewed challenge to the state’s revised lethal-injection protocol has ramped up in…
Read MoreNews
Aug 05, 2020
Reform Prosecutor Kimberly Gardner Wins St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Primary Election
In a primary election that was regarded by many as a referendum on reform prosecutors, St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner (pictured) beat back a challenge by the circuit’s former chief homicide prosecutor, Mary Pat Carl. Election returns from the August 4, 2020, Democratic primary in St. Louis showed Gardner, the city’s first African-American Circuit Attorney, with 61% of the vote, while Carl received…
Read MoreNews
Aug 04, 2020
Angela McAnulty, Only Woman on Oregon’s Death Row, Resentenced to Life in Prison
The only woman on Oregon’s death row has been resentenced to life in prison. On August 3, 2020, the Lane County Circuit Court accepted a settlement agreement in which Lane County prosecutors agreed to drop their appeal of a 2019 ruling overturning the death sentence imposed on Angela McAnulty (pictured) in February 2011 and McAnulty agreed to drop her appeals of her murder…
Read MoreNews
Aug 03, 2020
Federal Appeals Court Overturns Death Sentence in Boston Marathon Bombing
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has overturned the death sentence imposed on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (pictured) for his role in the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and injured more than 250…
Read MoreNews
Aug 02, 2020
NEWS BRIEF — Federal Government, Texas Set New Execution Dates
As July 2020 came to a close, the federal government issued two more notices of execution and a county judge in Texas reportedly issued a new death warrant for a death-row prisoner whose previously scheduled execution had been…
Read MoreNews
Jul 31, 2020
Investigation Exposes History of Misconduct by Leading South Georgia Homicide Prosecutor in Death Penalty Cases
A prominent South Georgia prosecutor, lauded for his success in capital prosecutions, has a history of misconduct in those cases, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigative report has disclosed. Longtime Brunswick Judicial Circuit Assistant District Attorney John B. Johnson III, who joined the five-county prosecutor’s office in 1977, “has a dark legacy of problem cases,” the paper reports, including repeatedly withholding evidence from the defense…
Read MoreNews
Jul 30, 2020
Over Tribal Objection, U.S. Government Sets New Execution Date for Sole Native American on Federal Death Row
The U.S. government has set an August 26, 2020 execution date for the sole Native American on federal death row, against the wishes of his tribe, the victims’ family, and the local U.S. Attorney’s office that prosecuted the…
Read MoreNews
Jul 29, 2020
Commentary: Repealing Death Penalty ‘Essential to Racial Healing’ in Virginia
Recent police and vigilante killings of Black Americans have ignited a national call for systemic reform of law enforcement across the country, highlighting the link between extrajudicial abuse of force and widespread discriminatory application of unnecessarily harsh legal punishments against people of color. In the wake of these murders, Maryland public defender Kristina Leslie (pictured) writes, “[m]eaningful and equitable criminal justice reform … must include abolishing…
Read MoreNews
Jul 28, 2020
Nebraska Pharmacy May Have Violated Drug Distribution Policies, State Refused Drug Give-Back Demands, Records Show
Nebraska may have executed Carey Dean Moore in August 2018 using drugs supplied by a pharmacy in violation of pharmaceutical manufacturers’ distribution policies, Nebraska Department of Correctional Services (NDCS) records…
Read MoreNews
Jul 27, 2020
Victims’ Family Says They Were Retraumatized by Government’s Conduct During Federal Executions
When Attorney General William Barr announced in July 2019 that the federal government planned to resume federal executions by putting to death Daniel Lewis Lee, the Department of Justice press release announcing the death warrants trumpeted that “we owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system.” But the family of Nancy Mueller (pictured) and her eight-year-old daughter Sarah Powell —…
Read More