Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

At least 166 wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed death-row pris­on­ers have been exon­er­at­ed since the death penal­ty was rein­sti­tut­ed in the United States in 1973. That num­ber, how­ev­er, may only scratch the sur­face in assess­ing the degree to which inno­cent men and women are being sent to U.S. death…

A fed­er­al dis­trict court has grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion to a Buddhist death-row pris­on­er in Texas over alle­ga­tions that the state is dis­crim­i­na­to­ri­ly deny­ing him access to reli­gious ser­vices that would be avail­able to Christian pris­on­ers on the day of their exe­cu­tion. On November 7, 2019, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas stayed the November 13 exe­cu­tion of Patrick Murphy (pic­tured), mark­ing the sec­ond time in 2019 that his…

On March 16, 2017, say­ing that cap­i­tal punishment is ​“not in the best inter­ests of this com­mu­ni­ty or in the best inter­ests of jus­tice,” Orange/​Osceola County (FL) state pros­e­cu­tor Aramis Ayala announced that her office would not pur­sue the death penal­ty in any case. That deci­sion, announced in con­nec­tion with the pros­e­cu­tion of a man charged with killing his ex-girl­friend, her unborn child, and a police offi­cer respond­ing to the crime, ignit­ed a political…

Texas exe­cut­ed Justen Hall (pic­tured) on November 6, 2019 in the sec­ond Texas case of the year to present sig­nif­i­cant ques­tions as to a prisoner’s com­pe­ten­cy to be…

After being reversed twice by the United States Supreme Court, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) has resen­tenced intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled death-row pris­on­er Bobby James Moore to life in prison. In a three-page deci­sion issued on November 6, 2019, 39 years after Moore was sen­tenced to death in Houston for a 1980 mur­der dur­ing a super­mar­ket rob­bery, the CCA con­ced­ed that the U.S. Supreme Court has determined that ​“Moore … is a per­son with intellectual…

The pros­e­cu­tor who sent Thomas Creech, Idaho​’s longest-serv­ing death-row pris­on­er, to jail 37 years ago now says that Creech and oth­ers sen­tenced to death in the Gem State should not be…

Whether South Dakota death-row pris­on­er Charles Rhines (pic­tured) lives or dies may depend less on whether he was con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death and more on whether the courts val­ue final­i­ty more than they val­ue fair­ness. As Rhines filed two sep­a­rate peti­tions in the U.S. Supreme Court and an appeal in the South Dakota Supreme Court on November 1, the South Dakota Department of Corrections announced that his execution,…

Ten exe­cu­tions were sched­uled to take place in October 2019, more than in any oth­er month in the last two years. As the month closed, how­ev­er, nine of those exe­cu­tions were not car­ried out. The 90% rate of war­rant fail­ures sym­bol­izes the death penalty’s con­tin­u­ing decline and the wide­spread prob­lems states are hav­ing with its imple­men­ta­tion. And with eight active exe­cu­tion dates pend­ing and two oth­er stays of exe­cu­tion in place in November and December, 2019 is near­ly cer­tain to become the…

Three U.S. exe­cu­tions were halt­ed on October 30, 2019, as the Georgia Supreme Court issued a day-of-exe­cu­­tion stay to Ray Jefferson Cromartie and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (pic­tured) grant­ed war­rants of reprieve to the next two death-row pris­on­ers sched­uled for exe­cu­tion in Ohio. The actions capped a tumul­tuous October in which nine of ten sched­uled exe­cu­tions did not take place and fed­er­al courts stayed two…

When Attorney General William Barr announced in July 2019 that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment planned to exe­cute five pris­on­ers in a five-week span from December 9, 2019 to January 15, 2020, he declared that ​“we owe it to the vic­tims and their fam­i­lies to car­ry for­ward the sen­tence imposed by our jus­tice sys­tem.” In at least two of those cas­es, how­ev­er, the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ty have said they don’t want the death penalty carried…