Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

A new study of four­teen years of Pennsylvania mur­der con­vic­tions has doc­u­ment­ed a sharp decline in coun­ty pros­e­cu­tors’ use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment across the Commonwealth. After exam­in­ing the court files of 4,184 mur­der con­vic­tions from 2004 to 2017, the Allentown Morning Call found that Pennsylvania pros­e­cu­tors sought the death penal­ty at more than triple the rate (3.3) at the start of the study peri­od than they did fourteen years…

For the first time in more than a decade, a jury in Wake County, North Carolina has sen­tenced a defen­dant to death. On March 4, 2019, a cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing jury vot­ed to impose the death penal­ty upon Seaga Edward Gillard, con­vict­ed of the dou­ble mur­der of a preg­nant pros­ti­tute and her boyfriend, who was assist­ing her in her busi­ness. It was the county’s tenth death-penal­­­ty tri­al since 2008, but juries had reject­ed a death sen­tence in each…

Whose inter­ests does a lawyer rep­re­sent, the cap­i­tal defen­dant whose life is at stake or the abu­sive father pay­ing for his defense? Alabama death-row pris­on­er Nicholas Acklin (pic­tured) is seek­ing U.S. Supreme Court review of that issue because he alleges that the lawyer who rep­re­sent­ed him at tri­al had a finan­cial con­flict of inter­est that affect­ed the way he rep­re­sent­ed Acklin in the penal­ty phase of his cap­i­tal tri­al. Nick…

Death-row exoneree Alfred Dewayne Brown (pic­tured) was declared​“actu­al­ly inno­cent” by Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg on March 1, 2019, mak­ing Brown eli­gi­ble for state com­pen­sa­tion for the time he spent wrong­ful­ly impris­oned on Texas’ death row.​“My oblig­a­tion as an advo­cate is not to tell peo­ple what they want to hear but to tell them the truth,” Ogg said at a press con­fer­ence.​“Alfred Brown was wrong­ful­ly convicted through…

The United States Supreme Court has reversed a deci­sion of the Alabama state courts that would have per­mit­ted the exe­cu­tion of Vernon Madison (pic­tured), a death-row pris­on­er whose severe demen­tia has left him with no mem­o­ry of the crime for which he was sen­tenced to death and com­pro­mised his under­stand­ing of why he was to be…

Texas is sched­uled to exe­cute Billie Wayne Coble (pic­tured) on February 28, 2019, despite court find­ings that two expert wit­ness­es who tes­ti­fied for the pros­e­cu­tion gave​“prob­lem­at­ic” and​“fab­ri­cat­ed” tes­ti­mo­ny at his tri­al. Coble was sen­tenced to death in 1990 and resen­tenced in 2008 after his orig­i­nal sen­tence was over­turned as a result of con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly defi­cient jury instruc­tions. At his resen­tenc­ing, the issue of…

An esti­mat­ed 1,500 gov­ern­ment offi­cials and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of non-gov­­­ern­­­men­­­tal orga­ni­za­tions from more than 140 coun­tries gath­ered in Brussels, Belgium on February 26, 2019 for the open­ing of the Seventh World Congress Against the Death Penalty. The World Congress ­– orga­nized by the Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort and the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty – is the world’s lead­ing con­vo­ca­tion on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The four-day meet­ing formally opened…

Two for­mer California death-row pris­on­ers who had spent a com­bined 70 years in prison are now free men, after fed­er­al courts over­turned their con­vic­tions and local pros­e­cu­tors agreed to plea deals on non-cap­i­­­tal charges. James Hardy (pic­tured, left) was freed on February 14, 2019 after plead­ing guilty to two counts of first-degree mur­der in exchange for a sus­pend­ed sen­tence and release on pro­ba­tion. Freddie Lee Taylor…

Responding to the Georgia state and fed­er­al courts’ refusal to reverse a death sen­tence imposed on an African-American defen­dant by a jury taint­ed by racism, an ide­o­log­i­cal­ly diverse range of voic­es have called on the U.S. Supreme Court to inter­vene. Georgia death-row pris­on­er Keith Tharpe (pic­tured) was sen­tenced to death by a juror who lat­er said,​“there are two types of black peo­ple: 1. Black folks and 2. N***rs,” and…

Two ami­cus curi­ae briefs filed in the Racial Justice Act appeal of North Carolina death-row pris­on­er Rayford Burke (pic­tured) are ask­ing the North Carolina Supreme Court to redress sys­temic prob­lems in North Carolina’s admin­is­tra­tion of its death penal­ty. One brief, filed by the New York-based NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), urges the court to pro­vide Burke​“the oppor­tu­ni­ty to prove that racial bias…