Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a chal­lenge to the fed­er­al exe­cu­tion pro­to­col, remov­ing a poten­tial major obsta­cle to the Department of Justice​’s (DOJ) plan to resume fed­er­al exe­cu­tions after a 17-year hia­tus. The deci­sion leaves in place an April 2020 rul­ing by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that lift­ed an injunc­tion that had halt­ed fed­er­al exe­cu­tions. The Department has sched­uled four exe­cu­tions in July and…

“States still oper­at­ing a cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem are inca­pable of admin­is­ter­ing the death penal­ty free from racial dis­crim­i­na­tion and arbi­trari­ness.” So argues Alexis Hoag (pic­tured), Practitioner in Residence at the Eric H. Holder Jr. Initiative for Civil and Political Rights at Columbia University, in an arti­cle in the Spring 2020 issue of the Columbia Human Rights Law…

A group of 15 admin­is­tra­tive law experts have filed an ami­cus curi­ae brief in sup­port of death-row pris­on­ers seek­ing U.S. Supreme Court review of a chal­lenge to the fed­er­al government’s pro­posed exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. The brief was filed June 19, 2020 in Roane v. Barr, a case brought by fed­er­al death-row pris­on­ers ask­ing the Court to over­turn an appel­late court’s rul­ing that lift­ed an injunc­tion on fed­er­al exe­cu­tions. According to the amicus brief, ​“This case presents a…

The per­cent­age of Americans who con­sid­er the death penal­ty to be moral­ly accept­able has fall­en to a record-low, a new nation­al poll by the Gallup organization has…

Three pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions and eight prac­ti­tion­ers in the fields of neu­ro­science and neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy have joined a Texas death-row pris­on­er in chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s use of ​“future dan­ger­ous­ness” find­ings to impose the death penal­ty on defen­dants who were younger than age 21 at the time of their offense. Their brief, filed in the U.S. Supreme Court on June 19, 2020, argues based on “[t]he great weight of sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence” that pre­dic­tions of whether an…

At least 1,300 pris­on­ers have been impris­oned on U.S. death rows for more than two decades, in vio­la­tion of U.S. human rights oblig­a­tions, a Death Penalty Information Center report on death-row incar­cer­a­tion prac­tices has found. The num­ber rep­re­sents more than half of all U.S. death-row pris­on­ers as of January 1, 2020. Nearly one third of the pris­on­ers whose lengthy death-row incar­cer­a­tions vio­late their human rights are on death row in…

As high-pro­­file sup­port mounts in the cam­paign for clemen­cy for death-row pris­on­er Julius Jones (pic­tured), the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board has turned to the pros­e­cu­tors who are seek­ing his exe­cu­tion — the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office — for advice on whether it can con­sid­er his peti­tion at all. The ques­tion fac­ing the board is whether Oklahoma law per­mits it to con­duct clemen­cy pro­ceed­ings for a death-row pris­on­er who does not face an active death…

Utah has become the lat­est U.S. state to have gone more than a decade with­out car­ry­ing out an exe­cu­tion. The state last put a pris­on­er to death on June 18, 2010, when it exe­cut­ed Ronnie Gardner by firing…

By a vote of 6 – 3, the U.S. Supreme Court over­turned a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) rul­ing uphold­ing the death sen­tence imposed on Terence Andrus (pic­tured). The Court held that Andrus’ coun­sel had pro­vid­ed sub­stan­dard rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the penal­­ty-phase of his tri­al, and direct­ed the TCCA to deter­mine whether counsel’s defi­cient per­for­mance may have affect­ed the jury’s sentencing…

With a peti­tion for review pend­ing before the U.S. Supreme Court on the legal­i­ty and con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the fed­er­al exe­cu­tion pro­to­col, U.S. Attorney General William Barr on June 15, 2020 set exe­cu­tion dates for four fed­er­al death-row pris­on­ers, includ­ing three who are involved in the pend­ing case. The war­rants sched­uled three exe­cu­tions over a five-day peri­od in July and a fourth exe­cu­tion in late August. No fed­er­al exe­cu­tions have been car­ried out since 2003, and the five…