Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Virginia​’s death row shrank to just two pris­on­ers on March 12 as recent­ly elect­ed Fairfax County, Virginia Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve T. Descano agreed to a deal to resen­tence for­mer death-row pris­on­er Mark Lawlor (pic­tured) to life with­out parole. Lawlor was sen­tenced to death in 2011 for the mur­der of Genevieve Orange. No one has been sen­tenced to death in Virginia…

Responding to esca­lat­ing health con­cerns caused by the COVID-19 coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has tem­porar­i­ly halt­ed the exe­cu­tion of John Hummel. In an order issued on March 16, 2020, the TCCA stayed Hummel’s exe­cu­tion, which had been sched­uled for March 18, for 60 days, say­ing the delay was necessary ​“in light of the cur­rent health cri­sis and the enor­mous resources need­ed to address that…

More than forty years after he was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death by an all-white Columbus, Georgia jury for the rape and mur­der of a 19-year-old white woman, Johnny Lee Gates (pic­tured) will be get­ting a new tri­al. On March 13, 2020, the Georgia Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly held that DNA con­tained on phys­i­cal evi­dence that police and pros­e­cu­tors had with­held for decades raised ​“sig­nif­i­cant doubt” as to Gates’…

Capital sen­tenc­ing schemes that per­mit judges to impose a death sen­tence despite the votes of one or more jurors for life cre­ate a height­ened risk that an inno­cent per­son will be wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death, accord­ing to a new Death Penalty Information Center analy­sis of death-row exoneration…

The num­ber of peo­ple on death row across the United States or fac­ing poten­tial cap­i­tal resen­tenc­ings declined by near­ly 20% in the 2010s, accord­ing to a Death Penalty Information Center analy­sis of data from the lat­est quar­ter­ly death-row cen­sus by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational…

Former Florida death-row pris­on­er Timothy Hurst (pic­tured), whose case led the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down Florida’s death-penal­­ty statute in 2016 and spurred the elim­i­na­tion of non-unan­i­­mous jury ver­dicts for death in Florida and Delaware, has been resen­tenced to life with­out parole. Hurst was offi­cial­ly removed from Florida’s death row after his cap­i­tal resen­tenc­ing jury did not reach a unan­i­mous sen­tenc­ing rec­om­men­da­tion on March 5,…

Paul Hildwin, whose death sen­tence was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1989 in a deci­sion it over­ruled 26 years lat­er, has been released from prison in Florida after spend­ing near­ly 34 years incar­cer­at­ed for a mur­der DNA evi­dence now shows he did not…

Saying that states have ​“no com­pelling need” to keep exe­cu­tion infor­ma­tion secret, the American Bar Association (ABA) has asked the Idaho Supreme Court to require the state to dis­close numer­ous exe­cu­­tion-relat­ed doc­u­ments under Idaho’s free­dom of infor­ma­tion law. On February 28, 2020, the ABA and a coali­tion of Idaho media orga­ni­za­tions led by the Idaho Press Club filed ami­cus curi­ae briefs in Cover v. Idaho Board of Correction in sup­port of an Idaho…

After a review of the case by its Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU), the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office has told a state tri­al court that death-row pris­on­er Walter Ogrod (pic­tured) is ​“like­ly inno­cent,” that new­ly dis­cov­ered evi­dence showed that city pros­e­cu­tors had vio­lat­ed his right to due process, and that his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence should be…

A bipar­ti­san coali­tion of Ohio law­mak­ers has announced plans to intro­duce leg­is­la­tion to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the Buckeye State. At a press con­fer­ence at the state capi­tol in Columbus on March 4, 2020, State Senator Nickie J. Antonio (D – Lakewood, pic­tured, left) said that she and Senator Peggy Lehner (R – Kettering, pic­tured, right) would be joint­ly spon­sor­ing a bill to abol­ish the death penal­ty and replace it with a sen­tence of life with­out possibility of…