Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

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…

A divid­ed U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that James McKinney (pic­tured), an Arizona death-row pris­on­er who was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly sen­tenced to death by a tri­al judge who did not con­sid­er mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence relat­ing to his severe Posttraumatic Stress Disorder from relent­less child­hood abuse, is not enti­tled to a jury tri­al to deter­mine his sen­tence. On February 25, 2020, in a 5 – 4 opin­ion authored by Justice Brett…

Tennessee has set two more exe­cu­tion dates for 2020, direct­ed, advo­cates say, at men whose cas­es present unre­solved issues of inno­cence, intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, and…

Vernon Madison, an Alabama death-row pris­on­er whose severe demen­tia led to a major Supreme Court deci­sion on com­pe­ten­cy to be exe­cut­ed, has died in prison at the…

Nine years after an American Bar Association (ABA) study iden­ti­fied sys­temic defi­cien­cies in Kentucky’s admin­is­tra­tion of its death-penal­­­ty laws, a new report by past and cur­rent Kentucky pub­lic defend­ers charges that the Commonwealth’s fail­ure to take any mean­ing­ful reme­di­al action under­mines the legit­i­ma­cy of capital punishment…

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…

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…

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…

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…