Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

On June 4, 2024, the Missouri Supreme Court set a September 24, 2024, exe­cu­tion date for death-sen­­­tenced pris­on­er Marcellus Williams (pic­tured), despite seri­ous doubts that he was not involved in the mur­der for which he is incar­cer­at­ed. The announce­ment came just hours after the state Supreme Court ruled that Governor Mike Parson did not vio­late any rules when he dis­solved a board of inquiry estab­lished in June 2023 by his pre­de­ces­sor, Eric Greitens, to investigate Mr.

On June 1, 2024, an Idaho jury sen­tenced Chad Daybell to death for the 2019 mur­ders of his first wife and his sec­ond wife’s two youngest chil­dren. Mr. Daybell plead­ed not guilty to mul­ti­ple first-degree mur­der, fraud, and con­spir­a­cy charges, but after being found guilty, he chose to waive his right to present mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence dur­ing his sen­tenc­ing hear­ing. With this deci­sion, Mr. Daybell declined the oppor­tu­ni­ty to pro­vide the jury with rea­sons why he should not be sen­tenced to death.

Florida Supreme Court in Tallahassee,…

In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPIC, Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Lamont Hunter (pic­tured), a for­mer Ohio death-sen­­­tenced pris­on­er who was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of caus­ing the death of his three-year-old son. After near­ly 18 years of incar­cer­a­tion, Mr. Hunter was released from Ohio’s death row on June 15, 2023, after plead­ing guilty to less­er charges in exchange for his free­dom. Since his release, Mr. Hunter has spo­ken wide­ly about his…

Madison County,…

Robert Roberson with daugh­ter Nikki. Courtesy of the…

Delaware County, Pennsylvania…

On May 20, 2024, Jefferson County, Alabama District Attorney Danny Carr asked a cir­cuit judge to grant a new tri­al to Toforest Johnson (cen­ter), an Alabama death row pris­on­er whose con­vic­tion DA Carr believes is​“fun­da­men­tal­ly unre­li­able.” This extra­or­di­nary request is the lat­est in a series of appeals for Mr. Johnson, who was sen­tenced to death in 1998 for the 1995 mur­der of Jefferson County Deputy Sheriff William Hardy but has always main­tained his inno­cence.​“A…

As of October 2023, the num­ber of peo­ple in the United States sen­tenced to death or fac­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a death sen­tence con­tin­ued its more than two-decade decline, accord­ing to the lat­est report issued by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund…

On May 9, Governor Bill Lee of Tennessee signed a bill autho­riz­ing the death penal­ty for aggra­vat­ed rape of a child, fol­low­ing Florida’s pas­sage of a sim­i­lar law last year. Both laws con­tra­dict long­stand­ing Supreme Court prece­dent hold­ing the death penal­ty uncon­sti­tu­tion­al for non-homi­­­cide crimes. Tennessee’s law takes effect on July 1. The state has had a death penal­ty mora­to­ri­um in place since May 2022 after Governor Lee learned that state offi­cials had failed to…