Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

When Georgia exe­cut­ed Marion Wilson, Jr., on June 20, 2019, it marked the 1500^th exe­cu­tion in the United States since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all death-penal­­ty statutes in Furman v. Georgia in 1972, then four years lat­er per­mit­ted exe­cu­tions to go for­ward under new statutes osten­si­bly enact­ed to address the uncon­sti­tu­tion­al arbi­trari­ness that had plagued the old laws. His exe­cu­tion, ana­lysts say, reflects a number of…

Finding that a Mississippi pros­e­cu­tor had inten­tion­al­ly struck black jurors in an attempt to empan­el as white a jury as pos­si­ble, the United States Supreme Court has over­turned the con­vic­tion of death-row pris­on­er Curtis Giovanni Flowers. The Court’s 7 – 2 deci­sion on June 21, 2019, found that Mississippi’s Fifth Circuit Court District Attorney Doug Evans had under­tak­en extra­or­di­nary efforts to pre­vent African Americans from serv­ing as jurors…

A Kentucky cap­i­tal defen­dant has moved to dis­miss all charges against him or to bar the death penal­ty in his case as a result of evi­dence that pros­e­cu­tors repeat­ed­ly eaves­dropped on priv­i­leged attor­ney-client tele­phone calls over the span of a year. Lawyers for James Mallory (pic­tured) have filed a motion to dis­miss the case for gross pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, alleg­ing that pros­e­cu­tors lis­tened to record­ings of 120 prison phone calls between Mallory and…

A new study of the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Los Angeles has con­clud­ed that, through­out the admin­is­tra­tion of District Attorney Jackie Lacey (pic­tured) the death penalty has ​“discriminate[d] on the basis of race and against the poor.” The study, released June 18, 2019 by the ACLU, report­ed that under Lacey’s admin­is­tra­tion the Los Angeles death penal­ty has been imposed exclu­sive­ly against defen­dants of col­or, disproportionately for…

Arguing that Marion Wilson (pic­tured, cen­ter) did not kill any­one and did not intend that a killing occur, lawyers for the Georgia death-row pris­on­er have filed a clemen­cy peti­tion urg­ing the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles to com­mute Wilson’s sen­tence to life with­out parole. The Board, which declas­si­fied Wilson’s peti­tion allow­ing it to be released to the pub­lic, is sched­uled to hold a clemen­cy hear­ing on Wednesday, June 19, 2019,…

Citing ​“egre­gious” mis­con­duct by state prison offi­cials in try­ing to evade a court order to pro­duce pub­lic records con­cern­ing its efforts to obtain lethal-injec­­tion drugs, an Indiana judge has direct­ed the state’s Department of Correction to pay more than a half mil­lion dol­lars in plain­tiffs’ attor­ney fees. On June 12, 2019, Marion County Circuit Judge Sheryl Lynch (pic­tured) award­ed $538,000 in attor­ney fees to plain­tiffs who were seeking…

The Death Penalty Information Center has mod­ern­ized and expand­ed its award-win­n­ing web­site. On June 14, 2019, DPIC launched its redesigned web­site, cul­mi­nat­ing a two-year project that involved the trans­fer and reor­ga­ni­za­tion of infor­ma­tion on the Center’s more than 7,000 web­pages. Among the most notable addi­tions of the new web­site are 20 inter­ac­tive Tableau graph­ics, includ­ing States With and Without the Death Penalty, Prisoners on Death Row, and a number…

A North Carolina death-row pris­on­er is seek­ing a new tri­al based on alle­ga­tions that pros­e­cu­tors in his case used a train­ing doc­u­ment steeped in racist stereo­types to man­u­fac­ture pre­tex­tu­al rea­sons to exclude African Americans from serv­ing on his jury. In a June 4, 2019 court fil­ing in the appeal of Russell William Tucker (pic­tured), two nation­al experts say that the Forsyth County pros­e­cu­tors uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly exer­cised their dis­cre­tionary juror chal­lenges on the basis of race to strike all…

The Ohio House of Representatives has over­whelm­ing­ly approved a bill that would ban the death penal­ty for offend­ers who were seri­ous­ly men­tal­ly ill at the time of the offense. House Bill 136, spon­sored by Rep. Brett Hillyer (R – Uhrichsville, pic­tured), passed the House by a vote of 76 – 18 on June 5, 2019 with bipar­ti­san sup­port and was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 11. Hillyer’s bill would remove the death penal­ty as a sen­tenc­ing option for defen­dants who can show they…

The U.S. Supreme Court has grant­ed review of an Arizona death-penal­­ty case in which the state courts first refused to con­sid­er a defendant’s mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence and then denied his request for a jury sen­tenc­ing hear­ing after his death sen­tence was over­turned. The Court on June 10, 2019 grant­ed the peti­tion for writ of cer­tio­rari filed by Arizona death-row pris­on­er James Erin McKinney (pic­tured) 26 years after he was first sentenced to…