Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

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…

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…

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’…

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 last three men sched­uled for exe­cu­tion in Georgia said they did not com­mit the killing and that DNA test­ing that was not avail­able at the time of tri­al could prove it. In two of the cas­es, vic­tim fam­i­ly mem­bers sup­port­ed the request for test­ing. Prosecutors opposed the requests, and the courts refused to allow the test­ing. Two of the three men were exe­cut­ed, with doubts still swirling as…

Three groups, rep­re­sent­ing pros­e­cu­tors, the Catholic Church, and polit­i­cal con­ser­v­a­tives, have filed briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court sup­port­ing the efforts of Florida death-row pris­on­er James Dailey (pic­tured) to obtain judi­cial review of his inno­cence claim. Dailey filed a peti­tion for cer­tio­rari on January 10, 2020 ask­ing the Supreme Court to hear his case, after the Florida courts refused to con­sid­er evi­dence that anoth­er man had confessed…

As the death penal­ty con­tin­ues to wilt across the coun­try, what­ev­er peno­log­i­cal jus­ti­fi­ca­tion it once pur­port­ed­ly served is dying as well, say cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment schol­ars Carol Steiker and Jordan Steiker (pic­tured). In their new arti­cle The Rise, Fall, and Afterlife of the Death Penalty in the United States in the January 2020 Annual Review of Criminology, the Steikers exam­ine four cen­tral issues in the rise and fall…

Calling the death penal­ty​“a failed gov­ern­ment pro­gram,” 21 cur­rent and for­mer Virginia pros­e­cu­tors have signed on to a let­ter to the commonwealth’s General Assembly urg­ing the leg­is­la­ture to abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The let­ter was signed by for­mer Attorneys General Mark L. Earley, Sr., a Republican who presided over 36 exe­cu­tions dur­ing 13 years in office, and Democrat William G. Broaddus, nine cur­rent or for­mer Commonwealth’s Attorneys elect­ed across the…