Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

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…

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 —…

The Innocence Project and fed­er­al defend­ers have filed a motion in a Shelby County, Tennessee tri­al court seek­ing DNA test­ing of phys­i­cal evi­dence hid­den by pros­e­cu­tors for 30 years that they believe will exon­er­ate death-row pris­on­er Pervis Payne (pic­tured). Payne, who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on December 3, 2020, has stead­fast­ly denied com­mit­ting the crime. The lawyers argue that his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence are the com­bined prod­uct of racial bias by…

After four unsuc­cess­ful attempts to impose the death penal­ty over the past decade and what he described as a trans­for­ma­tive vis­it to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, Santa Clara County, California District Attorney Jeff Rosen (pic­tured) has announced that his office will no longer seek the death…

Derrick Jamison sur­vived six death war­rants dur­ing his two decades on Ohio​’s death row, com­ing with­in 90 min­utes of being exe­cut­ed. After he was exon­er­at­ed, on the day he walked free, his best friend on death row was exe­cut­ed. His sto­ry, he writes in a July 11, 2020 op-ed in the Tampa Bay Times, ​“illus­trates every­thing that is wrong with the death penal­ty” and why it should be…

Calling cap­i­tal punishment a ​“lux­u­ry” that the state can no longer afford, Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon (pic­tured) told leg­is­la­tors that he is ​“very seri­ous­ly” con­sid­er­ing impos­ing a mora­to­ri­um on the state’s rarely-used death…

In the lat­est episode of Discussions With DPIC, David Fathi, the direc­tor of the ACLU​’s National Prison Project, speaks with DPIC​’s Managing Director Anne Holsinger about death-row con­di­tions across the coun­try. Fathi speaks about the ​“shat­ter­ing” effects of long-term death-row soli­tary con­fine­ment, the move­ment away from auto­mat­ic soli­tary con­fine­ment for death row pris­on­ers, and the impact of COVID-19 in con­­gre­­gate-liv­ing cir­cum­stances, such as…

The United States gov­ern­ment car­ried out its third exe­cu­tion in four days on July 17, 2020, exe­cut­ing Dustin Honken (pic­tured). The week’s exe­cu­tions dou­bled the num­ber of pris­on­ers the gov­ern­ment has put to death since Congress reau­tho­rized the fed­er­al death penalty in…

For the sec­ond time in three days, the United States gov­ern­ment has exe­cut­ed a pris­on­er after a 5 – 4 overnight deci­sion of the U.S. Supreme Court short-cir­cuit­ed judi­cial review of sig­nif­i­cant legal claims and after the orig­i­nal death war­rant set­ting his exe­cu­tion date had…

Lawyers for Wesley Purkey (pic­tured), the sec­ond of three fed­er­al death-row pris­on­ers sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed dur­ing the week of July 13, are seek­ing to halt his exe­cu­tion, argu­ing that men­tal ill­ness and demen­tia have left him men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent. As Purkey chal­lenges the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of his exe­cu­tion, his spir­i­tu­al advi­sor, Rev. Dale Hartkemeyer, is seek­ing to move back the exe­cu­tion until the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic sub­sides. Hartkemeyer’s lawsuit asserts…