Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts has vetoed a bill that would have increased trans­paren­cy in the state’s exe­cu­tion process. LB 238, which passed the state’s uni­cam­er­al leg­is­la­ture on August 13, 2020 by a vote of 27 – 10 with 12 mem­bers present but not vot­ing, would have allowed wit­ness­es to see the exe­cu­tion from the moment the pris­on­er enters the death cham­ber until the pris­on­er is declared dead or the…

In a rul­ing imbued with his­toric sig­nif­i­cance, the North Carolina Supreme Court has for the first time acknowl­edged per­va­sive dis­crim­i­na­tion in the state’s use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and vacat­ed a death-row prisoner’s death sen­tence under the since-repealed Racial Justice Act…

Legislators in an August 13, 2020 vir­tu­al forum on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment say that the eco­nom­ic impact of the coro­n­avirus on state bud­gets adds to their con­cerns about the via­bil­i­ty and desir­abil­i­ty of the death penal­ty as a social…

Attorney General William Barr has promised vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers that, in exchange for infor­ma­tion nec­es­sary to bring two British ISIS detainees believed respon­si­ble for the mur­ders of four Americans, two British aid work­ers, and more than twen­ty oth­ers to tri­al in the United States, the Department of Justice (DOJ) will not seek the death…

The American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section has released The State of Criminal Justice 2020, its annu­al report on issues, trends, and sig­nif­i­cant changes in America’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. The ABA book includes a chap­ter on sig­nif­i­cant cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment devel­op­ments over the past year, authored by Ronald J. Tabak, chair of the Death Penalty Committee of the ABA​’s Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice.

The slow but steady ero­sion of U.S. death row con­tin­ued in the first quar­ter of 2020, data from the lat­est quar­ter­ly death-row cen­sus by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) has revealed. The Spring 2020 edi­tion of Death Row USA (DRUSA), released August 10, reports that 2,603 peo­ple were on death row or fac­ing resen­tenc­ing as of April 1, 2020. That marked a decline of 17 since the January 1, 2020 report and a 2.6% drop from the 2,673 LDF…

After 12 years as Orleans Parish, Louisiana District Attorney, Leon Cannizzaro (pic­tured) has announced that he will not seek re-elec­­­tion and will be retir­ing as D.A. at the end of this term. Cannizzaro’s tenure in office was marked by his aggres­sive defense of pri­or offi­cial mis­con­duct in cap­i­tal cas­es, mis­con­duct by his office while he was District Attorney, and rev­e­la­tions that Orleans Parish pros­e­cu­tors had routinely…

The death penal­ty is​“a los­ing sit­u­a­tion for every­body,” actress and Clemency star Alfre Woodard said in a recent Screen Actors Guild — American Federation of Television and Radio Artists inter­net forum.​“It does not bring back the per­son who has been tak­en vio­lent­ly. It doesn’t. It…

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…

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…