Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

In the March 2020 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Hannah Cox (pic­tured), National Manager of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty (CCATDP) speaks with Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham about the con­tin­u­ing move­ment by social and polit­i­cal con­ser­v­a­tives away from cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, how the death penal­ty is out of step with core con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues, and the key role that con­ser­v­a­tive leg­is­la­tors are playing in…

Sandra Lockett-Young (pic­tured, right, with Sister Helen Prejean), whose case estab­lished a cap­i­tal defendant’s right to present a broad range of mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence con­cern­ing her char­ac­ter, back­ground, and record and the cir­cum­stances of her offense, has died. Lockett had suf­fered a severe stroke in June 2019 from which she nev­er recov­ered. She died in an Ohio hos­pice on February 26, 2020 at…

Less than two weeks after Oklahoma offi­cials announced that the state would return to the same con­tro­ver­sial three-drug exe­cu­tion pro­to­col impli­cat­ed in a series of botched exe­cu­tions in 2014 and 2015, the state’s death-row pris­on­ers have asked a fed­er­al court to reac­ti­vate their law­suit chal­leng­ing the state’s exe­cu­tion process. The February 27, 2020 fil­ing in the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma called the new…

Nathaniel Woods (pic­tured, left) did not shoot Alabama police offi­cers Charles Bennett, Carlos​“Curly” Owen, and Harley Chisholm III (pic­tured left to right, below). But because of alleged police mis­con­duct, incom­pe­tent rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and Alabama law allow­ing death ver­dicts based on non-unan­i­­­mous jury votes, he faces exe­cu­tion on March 5, 2020…