Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

The 2019 – 2020 U.S. Supreme Court term opened on October 7 with the Court declin­ing to review chal­lenges to death-penal­­­ty court deci­sions from a num­ber of states and with the Court hear­ing argu­ment in a Kansas death-penal­­­ty case rais­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al ques­tions about a defendant’s right to present an…

Change is com­ing to Oklahoma​’s row. In July, a coali­tion of pris­on­ers’ rights orga­ni­za­tions called the state’s pol­i­cy of hous­ing its death-row pris­on­ers in soli­tary con­fine­ment in an under­ground facil­i­ty​“inhu­mane and oppres­sive” and threat­ened legal action if reforms were not forth­com­ing. On September 26, 2019, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections announced that with­in 30 days it would be relo­cat­ing​“all qual­i­fy­ing death row…

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has rein­stat­ed the death sen­tence of Paul Storey (pic­tured), after a Tarrant County judge had reduced his sen­tence to life because a pros­e­cu­tor had lied at tri­al about the victim’s family’s views on the death penal­ty. In a divid­ed opin­ion issued October 2, 2019, the court did not address the mer­its of Storey’s claim that his death sen­tence should be over­turned because the pros­e­cu­tion had presented false…

Texas state courts have halt­ed the exe­cu­tions of two con­demned pris­on­ers who had been fac­ing immi­nent exe­cu­tion dates. On October 4, 2019, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed the October 10 exe­cu­tion of Randy Halprin (pic­tured, left) and direct­ed a Dallas tri­al court to con­sid­er his claim that the reli­gious big­otry of the judge who presided over his case denied him a fair tri­al before an impar­tial tri­bunal. The previous day,…

Jurors in South Carolina report that they are expe­ri­enc­ing pro­found psy­cho­log­i­cal effects from their expo­sure to graph­i­cal­ly vio­lent images, tes­ti­mo­ny, and argu­ment dur­ing the death-penal­­­ty tri­al of Tim Jones, Jr. (pic­tured). Three months after the June 13, 2019 con­clu­sion of the penal­ty phase of a tri­al in which jurors sen­tenced Jones to death for killing his five young chil­dren, nine of the 18 Lexington County jurors and…

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has grant­ed a reprieve to Cleveland Jackson, delay­ing his exe­cu­tion date from November 13, 2019 to January 13, 2021, because of a mis­con­duct com­plaint filed against his pre­vi­ous appel­late attor­neys. The ethics com­plaint alleges that John Gibbons and James Jenkins, who were appoint­ed in 2007 to rep­re­sent Jackson dur­ing his habeas cor­pus appeal, missed crit­i­cal fil­ing dead­lines, did not meet with their client for years, and even…

A Kentucky man who lan­guished in jail for near­ly six years because of bail he could not afford has been acquit­ted of cap­i­tal mur­der and relat­ed charges. Eugene​“Red” Mitchell (pic­tured) faced the death penal­ty on charges that he had raped, sodom­ized, and mur­dered Sheila Devine, a Louisville grand­moth­er. On September 18, 2019, a Jefferson County jury found Mitchell not guilty of all charges against him. He had spent five years,…

A Missouri death-row pris­on­er whose rare med­ical con­di­tion, he says, risks mak­ing his exe­cu­tion by lethal injec­tion a grue­some and gris­ly spec­ta­cle is seek­ing clemen­cy from Missouri Governor Mike Parson ahead of his October 1, 2019 execution…

Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery (pic­tured) has asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to set exe­cu­tion dates for an unprece­dent­ed nine death-row pris­on­ers, the largest exe­cu­tion request in the mod­ern his­to­ry of Tennessee’s death penal­ty. On the same day, September 20, 2019, Slatery attempt­ed to inter­vene in the case of death-row pris­on­er Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman to reac­ti­vate his death war­rant and undo a court-approved…

The Kentucky Supreme Court has heard oral argu­ment and will soon decide whether sub­ject­ing youth­ful offend­ers under age 21 to the death penal­ty vio­lates the con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­hi­bi­tion against cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. On September 19, 2019, the Court heard argu­ment in the government’s appeals of two cap­i­tal cas­es in which a tri­al judge barred coun­ty pros­e­cu­tors from seek­ing the death penal­ty because the defen­dants charged with the murders…