Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

On March 19, 2024, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole denied clemen­cy for Willie Pye (pic­tured), who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on March 20, despite argu­ments that he has an intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty and is there­fore inel­i­gi­ble for exe­cu­tion, per Georgia state law and U.S. Supreme Court prece­dent. Convicted in 1996 for the 1993 mur­der of his ex-girl­friend, Alicia Yarbrough, Mr. Pye has spent the last 28 years on Georgia’s death row. Mr. Pye’s case has also gen­er­at­ed pub­lic con­cern due to…

This week marks the 15^th anniver­sary of the repeal of the death penal­ty in New Mexico. On March 18^th, 2009, Governor Bill Richardson signed the repeal act (HB2085), end­ing the death penal­ty in the state. The bill came into force on July 1^st, 2009. New Mexico fol­lowed New Jersey to become the sec­ond state in the 21^st Century to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment through legislative…

On February 16, 2024, Utah Governor Spencer Cox signed Senate Bill 109, Corrections Modifications, into law, ​“amend[ing] pro­vi­sions relat­ed to the [Utah] Department of Corrections.” S.B. 109, described as an ​“uncon­tro­ver­sial” leg­isla­tive mea­sure, was belat­ed­ly amend­ed to include a pro­vi­sion pre­vent­ing the pub­lic disclosure of ​“iden­ti­fy­ing infor­ma­tion” about indi­vid­u­als involved in car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions, the pro­cure­ment of drugs and sup­plies need­ed for exe­cu­tions, and any identifying…

This month, DPIC cel­e­brates Women’s History Month with week­ly pro­files of notable women whose work has been sig­nif­i­cant in the mod­ern death penal­ty era. The sec­ond entry in this series is Sarah Belal, founder and exec­u­tive direc­tor of Justice Project Pakistan (JPP), a non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion in Lahore,…

On Friday, March 8, 2024 a Johnston County tri­al court con­clud­ed a his­toric hear­ing regard­ing the claims of Hasson Bacote, a death-sen­­tenced pris­on­er in North Carolina, that racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in jury selec­tion played a role in his 2009 cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing. The case, which is being reviewed pur­suant to North Carolina’s 2009 Racial Justice Act (RJA), could have impli­ca­tions for more than 100 oth­er death row pris­on­ers who have pend­ing claims under the…

Jessie Dotson, a man sen­tenced to death for killing six peo­ple in 2008 in the Binghampton neigh­bor­hood of Memphis, Tennessee, has filed a peti­tion for a writ of a habeas cor­pus ask­ing a judge to vacate his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. His peti­tion alleges that he is inno­cent, that police coerced him to false­ly con­fess, and that a num­ber of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al and defense errors occurred at tri­al. Mr. Dotson has been on death row since 2008, when he was sen­tenced to death for the mur­ders of four…

As more states con­sid­er nitro­gen hypox­ia as an exe­cu­tion method, three of the largest man­u­fac­tur­ers in the U.S. have barred their prod­ucts intend­ed for life-sav­ing mea­sures from use in…

In May 1990, Jonathan Eig, then a reporter for The New Orleans Times-Picayune, wit­nessed the elec­tric-chair-exe­cu­­tion of Dalton Prejean at Angola State Penitentiary for the 1977 mur­der of a Louisiana state troop­er. Mr. Eig watched Mr. Prejean’s exe­cu­tion through an obser­va­tion win­dow, and reported seeing ​“his chest heave, his fists clench and his right wrist twist out­ward. A spark and a puff of smoke shot from the elec­trode attached to his left leg.” In the years fol­low­ing the exe­cu­tion, Mr.

This month, DPIC cel­e­brates Women’s History Month with week­ly pro­files of notable women whose work was sig­nif­i­cant in the mod­ern death penal­ty era. The first entry in this series is U.S. District Court Judge Natasha…

On February 28, 2023, the Oklahoma House Criminal Justice and Corrections Committee unan­i­mous­ly passed a bill that would pause all pend­ing exe­cu­tions and pro­hib­it new death sen­tences while an inde­pen­dent task force reviews cur­rent Oklahoma death penal­ty pro­ce­dures. House Bill 3138, also known as the Death Penalty Moratorium Act, was intro­duced by Republican Representative Kevin McDugle and would cre­ate a five-mem­ber Death Penalty Reform Task Force to ​“study and report on the progress of…