Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

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…

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…