Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

A Florida state court judge has grant­ed death-row pris­on­er James Dailey an evi­den­tiary hear­ing on his claim that he did not com­mit the mur­der for which he was sen­tenced to death three decades…

Nebraska​’s uni­cam­er­al leg­is­la­ture vot­ed on February 13, 2020 to advance a bill that would increase trans­paren­cy in the state’s exe­cu­tion process. LB 238, which would allow wit­ness­es to see the exe­cu­tion from the moment the pris­on­er enters the death cham­ber until the pris­on­er is declared dead or the exe­cu­tion is halt­ed, passed an ini­tial con­sid­er­a­tion by a 33 – 7 vote. It must pass a sec­ond vote in order to be sub­mit­ted to the…

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has announced plans to allow some of the state’s death-sen­­tenced pris­on­ers to move from San Quentin’s death row to oth­er state pris­ons that offer work and oth­er reha­bil­i­ta­tive pro­grams. In what has been billed a ​“pilot pro­gram,” the eli­gi­ble pris­on­ers will be able to trans­fer to one of eight less cost­ly high-secu­ri­­ty pris­ons that pro­vide reha­bil­i­ta­tive ser­vices. The death-sen­­tenced pris­on­ers who are…

Tennessee has sched­uled three upcom­ing exe­cu­tions, despite ongo­ing lit­i­ga­tion sur­round­ing the use of its lethal injec­tion pro­to­col and prob­lems with its lethal-injec­­tion drugs that have led five pris­on­ers to opt for death by elec­tro­cu­tion. Attorneys for five oth­er death-row pris­on­ers, includ­ing Oscar Smith, who has an exe­cu­tion date of June 4, 2020, have filed a fed­er­al suit pre­sent­ing new evi­dence chal­leng­ing the state’s execution…

DNA exon­er­at­ed Ryan Matthews in 2004, after he had spent five years on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola for a mur­der he did not com­mit. In December 2019, he received his college degree. ​“I’m so used to obsta­cles get­ting in my way,” Matthews, told Nola​.com. ​“But that won’t stop me. When one door shuts, I work to get anoth­er one to…

After a five-year hia­tus, Oklahoma has announced plans to resume exe­cu­tions by return­ing to the same com­bi­na­tion of lethal-injec­­tion drugs that were part of its exe­cu­tion pro­to­col dur­ing a series of botched exe­cu­tions in 2014 and…

Rocky Myers (pic­tured) may be inno­cent and intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled, and his jury vot­ed to sen­tence him to life. So why is he fac­ing execution in…

As state leg­is­la­tures in Ohio and Washington con­tem­plate the future of their death-penal­­ty statutes, major news­pa­pers in each of the states are advocating legislative…

Andre Thomas (pic­tured) is a Texas death-row pris­on­er riv­en with schiz­o­phre­nia so severe that, in sep­a­rate inci­dents, he gouged out both of his eyes and ate one of them. The U.S. Court of Appeals heard oral argu­ment on February 5, 2020, about whether his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence should be over­turned because his lawyers failed to present evi­dence that he was incom­pe­tent to be tried, failed to present mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence of Thomas’ exten­sive history of…

Why is the death penal­ty pur­sued and imposed in some cas­es and not in oth­ers that, at first glance, seem facial­ly indis­tin­guish­able? Surveying the aca­d­e­m­ic lit­er­a­ture, Daniel Medwed, the University Distinguished Professor of Law and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University School of Law, points to one of the factors that ​“seeps into charg­ing and sen­tenc­ing deci­sions in mean­ing­ful and dis­turb­ing ways“ — race: first, the race of the vic­tim and then the race of the…