Entries by Death Penalty Information Center


News 

Dec 102018

Human Rights Day Marks 70th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

On December 10, 2018, the United Nations and oth­er inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions cel­e­brat­ed Human Rights Day, mark­ing the 70th anniver­sary of the adop­tion of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration, which has served as a foun­da­tion for the UNs efforts to abol­ish the death penal­ty, con­tains 30 arti­cles stat­ing uni­ver­sal­ly applic­a­ble rights based on the​“inher­ent dig­ni­ty” and​“equal and inalien­able rights of all mem­bers of the…

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Dec 072018

Tennessee Executes Mentally Ill and Sexually Abused Prisoner by Electrocution

Tennessee exe­cut­ed David Earl Miller (pic­tured at age 24) in the state’s elec­tric chair on December 6, 2018, after Governor Bill Haslam denied his appli­ca­tion for clemen­cy and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to address the denials of his chal­lenges to the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Tennessee’s exe­cu­tion meth­ods. Miller, a 61-year-old man with a sig­nif­i­cant his­to­ry of men­tal ill­ness who expe­ri­enced exten­sive sex­u­al and phys­i­cal abuse as a child, opted…

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Dec 062018

Execution Secrecy Takes a Hit in Court Proceedings in Indiana, Missouri

The exe­cu­tion process in Indiana and Missouri may become more trans­par­ent as a result of pub­­­lic-access law­suits filed in the two states. In Indiana, a Marion County tri­al judge ruled on November 30, 2018 that the state must release pre-2017 records con­cern­ing the drugs obtained by the state for exe­cu­tions and the com­pa­nies that pro­duced them. Three days ear­li­er, the ACLU of Missouri announced the set­tle­ment of a law­suit filed on behalf of…

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News 

Dec 052018

DPIC PODCAST: The New Catholic Teaching on the Death Penalty and Human Dignity

In August 2018, Pope Francis pro­mul­gat­ed a new Catholic Catechism that deemed the death penal­ty​“inad­mis­si­ble” in all cas­es and com­mit­ted the Church to work­ing to abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment world­wide. Cardinal Blase Cupich, the ninth Bishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago, joined DPIC Executive Director Robert Dunham on the lat­est episode of the pod­cast Discussions with DPIC, to explore the impli­ca­tions of the new teachings and…

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News 

Dec 042018

Texas Case Raises Questions of Fairness of Executing Accomplices

Texas plans to exe­cute Joseph Garcia on December 4, 2018, for the mur­der of a police offi­cer dur­ing a rob­bery in which Garcia nei­ther killed any­one nor intend­ed or expect­ed that a killing would take place. His case renews ques­tions about a Texas law called the​“law of par­ties” that allows defen­dants to be sen­tenced to death based upon the actions and intent of oth­ers, if the defen­dant played even a small role in a crime that resulted in…

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News 

Dec 032018

Unanimous Federal Appeals Court Orders New Sentencing for Virginia Death-Row Prisoner

A three-judge pan­el of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has unan­i­mous­ly over­turned the death sen­tence imposed on Virginia death-row pris­on­er Mark E. Lawlor in 2011, rul­ing that the tri­al court had uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly pre­vent­ed Lawlor from pre­sent­ing expert men­tal health tes­ti­mo­ny that he posed a low risk of vio­lence in prison if the jury spared his life. On November 27, 2018, the court reversed a decision of…

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News 

Nov 302018

Prominent, Diverse Voices Call for Supreme Court to Once Again Stop Bobby James Moore’s Execution

Twenty months after the Unites States Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly struck down Texas​’s non-sci­en­tif­ic stan­dard for eval­u­at­ing intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty in death penal­ty cas­es, the land­mark case in which it made that deci­sion is back before the Court. On December 7, 2018, the Court will con­fer­ence Moore v. Texas, to decide if it will review whether the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) once again uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly relied on…

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News 

Nov 292018

Investigation Reveals Texas Obtained Possibly Tainted Execution Drugs from Pharmacy With Tainted Safety Record

For the past three-and-a-half years, Texas has pur­chased exe­cu­tion drugs from a Houston-based com­pound­ing phar­ma­cy that, BuzzFeed News reports,​“has been cit­ed for scores of safe­ty vio­la­tions” and whose license to oper­ate is cur­rent­ly on pro­ba­tion. In an exclu­sive sto­ry by inves­tiga­tive reporter Chris McDaniel, BuzzFeed dis­cov­ered that Texas secret­ly obtained exe­cu­tion drugs from the Greenpark Compounding Pharmacy, a phar­ma­cy that the Texas State…

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News 

Nov 282018

Two Cases Pit Native American Sovereignty Against U.S. Death Penalty

As fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors dropped the death penal­ty against a Navajo man accused of killing a police offi­cer on Navajo land, the U.S. Supreme Court heard argu­ment in a sep­a­rate case on the sta­tus of a treaty estab­lish­ing the bor­ders of the Creek Nation reser­va­tion that could deter­mine whether Oklahoma has juris­dic­tion to car­ry out the death penal­ty against a cit­i­zen of the Muscogee (Creek) tribe. The two cases highlight…

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News 

Nov 272018

Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Upholds Death Sentence Based on False Psychiatric Testimony

For the sec­ond time in less than six months, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has upheld a death sen­tence that the tri­al court, lawyers for the pros­e­cu­tion and defense, and men­tal health experts all agree should not be car­ried out. On November 21, 2018, in an unpub­lished and unsigned opin­ion that mis­spelled death-row pris­on­er Jeffery Wood​’s name, the court reject­ed a rec­om­men­da­tion by the Kerr County District…

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