Entries by Death Penalty Information Center


News 

Jul 292019

Former Pennsylvania Prison Superintendent Describes Toll of Working on Death Row

A for­mer Pennsylvania death-row prison super­in­ten­dent says work­ing on death row makes cor­rec­tions per­son­nel feel​“less human” and​“can be pro­found­ly dam­ag­ing” psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly. Cynthia Link (pic­tured) served as the Superintendent of Pennsylvania’s State Correctional Institution at Graterford from 2015 to 2018, dur­ing a peri­od in which the prison housed more than 20 of the Commonwealth’s death row pris­on­ers. In a July…

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News 

Jul 252019

Federal Government Announces New Execution Protocol, Sets Five Execution Dates

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced its intent to adopt a new fed­er­al exe­cu­tion pro­to­col using a sin­gle exe­cu­tion drug and has issued death war­rants set­ting exe­cu­tion dates for five fed­er­al death-row pris­on­ers. In a July 25, 2019 press release, the DOJ said that Attorney General William P. Barr had direct­ed the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to adopt an adden­dum to the fed­er­al exe­cu­tion pro­to­col spec­i­fy­ing that fed­er­al exe­cu­tions will be…

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News 

Jul 242019

Bureau of Justice Statistics Releases 2017 Data on U.S. Capital Punishment

The decline in the U.S. death-row pop­u­la­tion con­tin­ued for a 17th con­sec­u­tive year in 2017, accord­ing to new­ly released find­ings by the United States Bureau of Justice Statistics. The data in the Bureau’s annu­al death-penal­­­ty report, Capital Punishment, 2017: Selected Findi­­ngs, con­firm the long-term find­ings of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund show­ing that death row has fall­en in size every…

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News 

Jul 232019

Divided Missouri Supreme Court Rules Against Craig Wood in Hung-Jury Death-Penalty Appeal

A divid­ed Missouri Supreme Court has upheld the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s death-penal­­­ty statute against a chal­lenge to its require­ment that the tri­al judge decide a cap­i­tal defendant’s sen­tence in cas­es of a penal­­­ty-phase hung jury. In a 4 – 3 deci­sion issued on July 16, 2019, the court reject­ed a claim brought by Craig Wood (pic­tured) that hung-jury judi­cial sen­tenc­ing vio­lat­ed his Sixth Amendment right to tri­al by jury. A 5 – 2 major­i­ty of the court also…

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News 

Jul 222019

High-Profile Federal Death-Penalty Trial of Brendt Christensen Ends in Life Sentence

In a high­ly pub­li­cized death-penal­­­ty tri­al, Brendt Christensen (pic­tured) was sen­tenced to life in prison with­out parole on July 18, 2019 for the rape and mur­der of Chinese grad­u­ate stu­dent Yingying Zhang when a fed­er­al jury in Peoria, Illinois did not reach a unan­i­mous deci­sion on what sen­tence was appro­pri­ate for his crime. The tri­al attract­ed broad nation­al and inter­na­tion­al atten­tion as a result of the sen­sa­tion­al cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the murder,…

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News 

Jul 192019

California Supreme Court to Consider Petition to Halt Capital Prosecutions

Calling Governor Gavin Newsom​’s mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions a​“par­a­digm shift” in the death-penal­­­ty land­scape, a defen­dant fac­ing the death penal­ty in Los Angeles has peti­tioned the California Supreme Court to halt cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions in the state. On July 1, 2019, lawyers for Cleamon Johnson—whose death penal­ty tri­al is sched­uled to begin in January 2020 — have filed a pre­tri­al peti­tion for review,…

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News 

Jul 182019

Philadelphia District Attorney Asks Pennsylvania Supreme Court to Strike Down State’s Death Penalty

Citing race dis­par­i­ties, inef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion by court-appoint­ed lawyers, and arbi­trary case out­comes, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office has asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to strike down the state’s death penal­ty. In a brief filed on July 15, 2019 in the con­sol­i­dat­ed appeals of Philadelphia death-row pris­on­er Jermont Cox and Northumberland County​’s Kevin Marinelli,…

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News 

Jul 172019

Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, Who Came to Oppose the Death Penalty, Dies at 99

Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who described his decid­ing vote to uphold the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in 1976 as the one court vote he most regret­ted, has died. He was 99 years old. A media advi­so­ry released by the Supreme Court on July 16, 2019, said that Stevens died of com­pli­ca­tions from a stroke he suf­fered the day before.​“He brought to our bench an inim­itable blend of kind­ness, humil­i­ty, wis­dom, and…

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News 

Jul 162019

Facing Prison-Conditions Court Challenge, South Carolina Moves Its Death Row to a New Facility

Amidst an ongo­ing law­suit chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of South Carolina​’s death-row con­di­tions, the state has moved its death-row pris­on­ers to a dif­fer­ent prison. On July 11, 2019, the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDOC) moved the state’s 38 death-row pris­on­ers from Kirkland Correctional Institution to the near­by Broad River Correctional Institution (pic­tured), into a facil­i­ty that had orig­i­nal­ly been built to house death-row…

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News 

Jul 152019

Books: Arbitrary Death” Reveals a Prosecutor’s Evolution on Capital Punishment

Rick Unklesbay served as a pros­e­cu­tor in the Pima County Attorney’s Office in Arizona for near­ly four decades, pros­e­cut­ing more than 100 homi­cides, includ­ing six­teen in which death sen­tences were imposed. He put Don Miller on death row and, in November 2000, watched as Arizona put Miller to death. In Arbitrary Death: A Prosecutor’s Perspective on the Death Penalty,…

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