Entries by Death Penalty Information Center


News 

May 222019

Two Foreign Nationals Receive New Trials as U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Hear State Death-Penalty Appeals

Two for­eign nation­als who were sen­tenced to death in unre­lat­ed cas­es will receive new tri­als after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear appeals of low­er court rul­ings over­turn­ing their con­vic­tions. Jose Echavarria (pic­tured, left), a Nevada pris­on­er orig­i­nal­ly from Cuba, and Ahmad Issa (pic­tured, right), an Ohio pris­on­er orig­i­nal­ly from Jordan, each were award­ed new tri­als by fed­er­al appel­late court deci­sions in 2018. The…

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News 

May 212019

Supreme Court Denies Review in Death-Penalty Case Where Texas Judge Rubberstamped Prosecution’s Findings

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review a case in which the Texas courts decid­ed a death-row prisoner’s appeal by adopt­ing the prosecution’s fact find­ings and legal argu­ments word-for-word with­out pro­vid­ing the defendant’s lawyer any oppor­tu­ni­ty to respond. In a May 20, 2019 rul­ing, the Court with­out com­ment denied the peti­tion for writ of cer­tio­rari filed by Ray Freeney (pic­tured), there­by per­mit­ting the Harris County

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News 

May 202019

Alabama Governor Calls Life Precious” and Sacred,” Then Denies Clemency to Michael Samra

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey has drawn crit­i­cism for deny­ing clemen­cy and pre­sid­ing over the exe­cu­tion of Michael Samra (pic­tured) on May 16, 2019, one day after issu­ing a state­ment call­ing Alabama a pro-life state and declaring life pre­cious” and sacred.” On May 15, Ivey signed into law a bill that crim­i­nal­izes abor­tion, say­ing that the new law stands as a pow­er­ful tes­ta­ment to Alabamians’ deeply held belief that every life is pre­cious and that every life is a sacred gift from God.” After…

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News 

May 172019

New Podcast: Emmy- and Oscar-Award Winning Director Edward Zwick on His New Film, Trial By Fire

In the lat­est episode of the Discussions with DPIC pod­cast, Emmy- and Oscar-win­n­er Edward Zwick speaks about his new movie, Trial By Fire. The film, which Zwick co-pro­­duced and direct­ed, tells the sto­ry of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1992 for the deaths of his three chil­dren in a house fire that pros­e­cu­tors wrong­ly claimed had been inten­tion­al­ly set. As Willingham’s exe­cu­tion approached in 2004, evi­dence came to light that arson…

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News 

May 162019

Department of Justice Asserts That Food and Drug Administration Lacks Jurisdiction’ Over Lethal-Injection Drugs

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has issued an advi­so­ry mem­o­ran­dum declar­ing that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lacks juris­dic­tion” to reg­u­late exe­cu­tion drugs, includ­ing enforc­ing fed­er­al laws that pro­hib­it the import of such drugs from abroad. The mem­o­ran­dum, authored by Assistant Attorney General Steven A. Engel (pic­tured) for the Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, places the admin­is­tra­tion square­ly in con­flict with a 2012

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News 

May 152019

Death-Penalty Opinions Expose Deep Divisions on U.S. Supreme Court

In the wake of sharp crit­i­cism of sev­er­al con­tro­ver­sial death-penal­­ty deci­sions, the five con­ser­v­a­tive jus­tices of the U.S. Supreme Court issued three opin­ions on May 13, 2019, explain­ing their votes in those ear­li­er cas­es. The opin­ions, issued in con­nec­tion with the appar­ent­ly incon­sis­tent orders in reli­gious dis­crim­i­na­tion claims brought by two death-row pris­on­ers and a deci­sion declin­ing to review the case of an Alabama death-row pris­on­er who had chal­lenged the state’s…

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News 

May 142019

Alabama Prisoner Seeks Stay, Reprieve to Challenge the Death Penalty for 19-Year-Old Offenders

Facing a May 16, 2019 exe­cu­tion date, Alabama death-row pris­on­er Michael Brandon Samra (pic­tured) has asked the United States Supreme Court and Governor Kay Ivey to halt his exe­cu­tion and for the Court to con­sid­er the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly of impos­ing the death penal­ty upon 19-year-old offend­ers. In a peti­tion filed on April 27, Samra — a teenage offend­er with bor­der­line intel­lec­tu­al func­tion­ing — asked the U.S. Supreme Court to…

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News 

May 132019

Science Challenges Myth that Death Penalty Brings Victims’ Families Closure

Proponents of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment have long argued for the death penal­ty on the grounds that it brings clo­sure to fam­i­ly mem­bers of homi­cide vic­tims. But sci­ence sug­gests that achiev­ing clo­sure through exe­cu­tion may be a myth, says fam­i­ly and child ther­a­pist Linda Lewis Griffith (pic­tured) in a May 6, 2019 col­umn in the San Luis Obispo Tribune, and that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment may actu­al­ly make matters…

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News 

May 102019

Study Finds Louisiana Spends An Extra $15 Million Per Year on Death Penalty

A new study of Louisianas death penal­ty reports that the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem costs tax­pay­ers at least $15.6 mil­lion a year more than a sys­tem with life with­out parole as the max­i­mum sen­tence. The study by retired New Orleans dis­trict Chief Judge Calvin Johnson (pic­tured, left) and Loyola Law Professor William Quigley (pic­tured, right), released on May 2, 2019, found that Louisiana has spent more than $200 mil­lion on its…

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News 

May 092019

Federal Appeals Court Upholds Ban on Unconstitutional Conditions on Virginia Death Row

A fed­er­al appeals court has declared that Virginia for many years housed its death-row pris­on­ers in uncon­sti­tu­tion­al con­di­tions and has barred the state from revert­ing to its pri­or prac­tices. On May 3, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that the Commonwealth’s for­mer pol­i­cy of 23- or 24-hour per day soli­tary con­fine­ment of death-row pris­on­ers con­sti­tut­ed cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment in vio­la­tion of the Eighth Amendment. The 2 – 1 deci­sion upheld a rul­ing by the U.S.

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