Entries by Death Penalty Information Center


News 

Aug 142018

Nebraska Executes Carey Dean Moore in First Execution in 21 Years

On August 14, 2018, more than two decades after last putting a pris­on­er to death, Nebraska exe­cut­ed Carey Dean Moore (pic­tured). The exe­cu­tion — which used an untest­ed drug for­mu­la of diazepam (the seda­tive Valium), fen­tanyl cit­rate (an opi­oid painkiller), cisatracuri­um besy­late (a par­a­lyt­ic), and potas­si­um chlo­ride to stop the heart — took 23 min­utes. It was the state’s first exe­cu­tion ever by…

Read More

News 

Aug 102018

Tennessee Executes Billy Ray Irick in First Execution Since 2009

Over sharp dis­sents by jus­tices of the U.S. and Tennessee Supreme Courts and lin­ger­ing ques­tions about the pris­on­er’s his­to­ry of men­tal ill­ness and the effi­ca­cy of the state’s lethal-injec­­­tion pro­to­col, Tennessee exe­cut­ed Billy Ray Irick (pic­tured) on August 9. He was the first per­son exe­cut­ed by the state since 2009. Justice Sonia Sotomayor described the process as a​“rush to exe­cute” and a descent into…

Read More

News 

Aug 082018

In First Post-Ferguson Election for St. Louis County Prosecutor, Death-Penalty Opponent Unseats Long-Time Incumbent

In an elec­tion viewed as a ref­er­en­dum on racial jus­tice and crim­i­nal jus­tice reform, death-penal­­­ty oppo­nent Wesley Bell (pic­tured, left) sound­ly defeat­ed sev­en-term incum­bent, Robert McCulloch (pic­tured, right) for the Democratic nom­i­na­tion for St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney. With no Republican oppo­si­tion in the gen­er­al elec­tion, Bell, a Ferguson, Missouri, city council…

Read More

News 

Aug 062018

Missouri Federal Appeals Court: Journalist’s Execution Witness Lawsuit May Proceed

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled on July 27, 2018 that Christopher S. McDaniel (pic­tured), an inves­tiga­tive reporter for BuzzFeed News, may pro­ceed with his law­suit chal­leng­ing the Missouri Department of Corrections’s pol­i­cy for select­ing exe­cu­tion wit­ness­es. McDaniel, who has writ­ten numer­ous arti­cles expos­ing irreg­u­lar­i­ties in Missouri’s exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dures, applied to the Director of the Department of…

Read More

News 

Aug 032018

Federal Judge Grants New Trial to Barry Jones Based on Evidence Suggesting His Innocence

A fed­er­al dis­trict court has vacat­ed the mur­der con­vic­tion of Arizona death-row pris­on­er Barry Jones (pic­tured) in the death of 4‑year-old Rachel Gray, and has ordered the state to imme­di­ate­ly retry or release Jones. On July 31, 2018, U.S. District Judge Timothy Burgess grant­ed a new tri­al to Jones, who has spent 23 years on Arizona’s death row, find­ing that if Jones had been com­pe­tent­ly rep­re­sent­ed at tri­al,​“there is a reasonable…

Read More