Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

A new report issued April 17, 2024 by the UK-based inter­na­tion­al human rights orga­ni­za­tion Reprieve found racial dis­par­i­ties in the occur­rence of botched exe­cu­tions in the United States. As report­ed in The Guardian, Reprieve ana­lyzed all lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions between 1976 and 2023. It chron­i­cled 73 con­firmed botched pro­ce­dures and found that 8% of exe­cu­tions of Black peo­ple were botched (37 times out of 465 exe­cu­tions), com­pared with 4% for white peo­ple (28…

Arizona…

On April 12, 2024, Judge Arturo Nelson signed an Agreed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law sub­mit­ted by the pros­e­cu­tion and defense stat­ing that Melissa Lucio (pic­tured) was not giv­en access to favor­able infor­ma­tion in the prosecution’s pos­ses­sion at the time of tri­al. The acknowl­edge­ment of this con­sti­tu­tion­al error result­ed in Judge Nelson’s rec­om­men­da­tion to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) that Ms. Lucio’s con­vic­tion and death sentence be…

From cen­ter left to right: Nikole Hannah-Jones, author of the 1619 project; Wilbert Rideau, for­mer Louisiana death row pris­on­er; CNN reporter and anchor Christiane Amanpour; Carl Bernstein, author and polit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor. Photo credit to…

During the April 7, 2024, episode of​“Last Week Tonight,” host John Oliver focused on​“grim devel­op­ments” in the death penal­ty since his last seg­ment cov­er­ing lethal injec­tion in 2019. Since then, 91 peo­ple have been exe­cut­ed, includ­ing 13 fed­er­al pris­on­ers dur­ing for­mer President Donald Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion.​“Our fed­er­al and state gov­ern­ments have con­tin­ued to pur­sue ques­tion­ably legal and def­i­nite­ly hor­ri­fy­ing ways, that, again, I would argue they…

Melissa…

On April 9, 2024, the California Office of the State Public Defender, along with sev­er­al civ­il rights groups, filed an extra­or­di­nary writ peti­tion at the California Supreme Court argu­ing that the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem vio­lates the state’s Constitution because of its racial­ly biased imple­men­ta­tion. In 2021, the California Committee on Revision of the Penal Code con­firmed that racial bias is entrenched in the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem.​“The California…

On April 5, 2024, Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen filed peti­tions ask­ing the coun­ty supe­ri­or court to resen­tence 15 death-sen­­­tenced men from his coun­ty to sen­tences of life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty for parole. These peti­tions were filed four years after DA Rosen announced his office would no longer seek the death penal­ty, a deci­sion part­ly in response to nation­wide calls for crim­i­nal legal reform fol­low­ing the mur­der of George Floyd. At the…

“At a time when faith in society’s insti­tu­tions is at an all-time low, the fail­ure of the cap­i­­­tal-pun­ish­­­ment sys­tem could be Exhibit A,” con­cludes the annu­al Capital Crimes Report issued by by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost. The Report high­lights numer­ous prob­lems with its​“bro­ken” cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem, includ­ing the​“enor­mous­ly…

Brian Dorsey (pic­tured), a Missouri death row pris­on­er sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on April 9, 2024, has gar­nered wide­spread sup­port for clemen­cy from more than 70 cor­rec­tions offi­cials, a for­mer Missouri Supreme Court Judge, mul­ti­ple jurors, Democratic and Republican state leg­is­la­tors, faith lead­ers, and his fam­i­ly mem­bers — sev­er­al of whom are relat­ed to the vic­tims, Sarah and Ben Bonnie — all of whom have called on Governor Mike Parson to com­mute his sentence to…