Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

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…

Oklahoma is sched­uled to exe­cute Michael Smith on April 4, the state’s first exe­cu­tion of 2024. Convicted in 2003 for the sep­a­rate 2002 mur­ders of Janet Moore and Sharath Babu Pulluru in Oklahoma County, Mr. Smith has spent the last 21 years on death row. Following his arrest, Mr. Smith con­fessed to his involve­ment in these killings to the police, but now says that he​“was high on drugs” dur­ing his inter­ro­ga­tion and does not​“even remember…

On March 27, 2024, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) resen­tenced death row pris­on­er Randall Mays to life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole after an expert for the state con­ced­ed that the evi­dence pre­sent­ed by Mr. Mays’ attor­neys indi­cates he is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled, and thus inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty. Originally sen­tenced to death in 2008 for the mur­der of two Henderson County, Texas, sheriff’s deputies, Mr. Mays’ attor­neys have long…

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 fourth and final entry in this series is Miriam Krinsky, a for­mer fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor and the Executive Director of Fair and Just Prosecution. Fair and Just Prosecution (FJP) is an orga­ni­za­tion of elect­ed pros­e­cu­tors​“com­mit­ted to pro­mot­ing a jus­tice sys­tem ground­ed in fair­ness, equi­ty, com­pas­sion, and…

In a March 26, 2024, op-ed pub­lished in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Patricia McTier, a Georgia nurse, recounts her expe­ri­ence being removed from a jury pool in 1998 for what she calls a​“ques­tion­able rea­son” relat­ed to her race. Born and raised in Appling County, Georgia, Ms. McTier grew up in the Jim Crow era and writes that she​“enter[ed] adult­hood dur­ing a time of great social change,” where she grew to​“cher­ish our American sys­tem of jus­tice and the…

On March 21, 2024, the 1^st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the judge who presided over Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s (pic­tured) tri­al to inves­ti­gate his defense attor­neys’ claims of juror bias and deter­mine whether Mr. Tsarnaev’s death sen­tence should be over­turned because of this bias. In a 2 – 1 deci­sion, the 1^st Circuit declined defense attor­ney requests to over­turn Mr. Tsarnaev’s death sen­tence for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in the April 2013 Boston Marathon bomb­ing but found that the…

“It is long past time to abol­ish the death penal­ty in the U.S.,” write the edi­tors for the Scientific American. In a March 19, 2024 op-ed titled​“Evidence Does Not Support the Use of the Death Penalty,” the authors cite an abun­dance of stud­ies demon­strat­ing that the death penal­ty is not a deter­rent to crime, but is a flawed, racial­ly biased, and cost­ly prac­tice respon­si­ble for sentencing innocent…

This week, The National Registry of Exonerations pub­lished its annu­al report on exon­er­a­tions that took place in 2023. According to the report,​“The Registry record­ed 153 exon­er­a­tions last year, and near­ly 84% (127/​153) were peo­ple of col­or. Nearly 61 per­cent of the exonerees (93/​153) were Black,” while the most fre­quent fac­tor in their wrong­ful con­vic­tion was offi­cial mis­con­duct.​“Seventy-five homi­cide cas­es — 85% of homi­cide exon­er­a­tions in 2023 — were marred…