Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

The case of Texas death-row prisoner Rodney Reed (pictured, right), who is facing execution in Texas on November 20, 2019 despite powerful evidence of innocence, is attracting national attention from unusual sources. On October 10 and 11, the syndicated television show Dr. Phil devoted two episodes to an investigation of the innocence claims in Reed’s case. “I don’t think it’s a question of whether he’s guilty or not guilty,” host Dr. Phil McGraw (pictured, left) said. “I think the question…

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has granted a stay of execution for federal death row prisoner Lezmond Mitchell to prevent the U.S. government from executing him before the court can review an on-going appeal concerning possible anti-Native American bias in his case. Mitchell, who was scheduled to be executed on December 11, 2019, is a member of the Navajo Nation and the only Native American on federal death row. His case is one of several in the past year…

Florida has scheduled the execution of 73-year-old James Dailey (pictured) for November 7, 2019, despite substantial evidence that he had no involvement in the killing, including a statement by the admitted killer, Daley’s co-defendant, that he had acted alone. Dailey stands to be either the 100 death-row prisoner put to death by Florida since executions resumed in the 1970s or the state’s 30^th death-row exoneree. Dailey was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1985 killing of 14-year-old…

In the latest episode of Discussions with DPIC, Texas capital defense lawyer James Rytting (pictured) discusses the case of his client, Larry Swearingen, and the junk science that led to the execution of a man legitimate science strongly suggests was innocent. Rytting describes the false forensic analysis presented under the guise of science in Swearingen’s case, the appellate process that makes it “almost impossible” to obtain review of new evidence, and the persistent problem of wrongful…

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 insanity defense. Among the more notable death penalty decisions, the Court denied a petition from an Alabama prisoner whose death sentence resulted in a judge’s override of a jury’s life verdict…

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 inmates” to a different facility. Led by the American Civil…

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 evidence and argument to the jury, instead ruling that…

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, a Henderson County District Court judge withdrew the death…

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 alternates from the case agreed to speak with the local newspaper, The…

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 failed to inform him when an execution…