Entries by Death Penalty Information Center


News 

Jul 182018

Texas Executes Another Defendant of Color Over Objection of Victim’s Family

Against the wish­es of the vic­tim’s fam­i­ly and amidst charges that the rejec­tion of his clemen­cy appli­ca­tion was root­ed in racial bias, Texas exe­cut­ed Christopher Young (pic­tured) on July 17, 2018. Young — who had been drunk and high on drugs when he killed Hashmukh Patel dur­ing a failed rob­bery in 2004 — had repeat­ed­ly expressed remorse for the mur­der and had been men­tor­ing trou­bled youth in an effort to pre­vent them from repeating his…

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Jul 162018

Amid War-Court Turmoil, Guantánamo Death-Penalty Judge Retires From Military Service

The U.S. Air Force has announced that the Guantánamo mil­i­tary commission’s USS Cole death-penal­­­ty judge, Air Force Colonel Vance Spath (pic­tured) is retir­ing, inject­ing new uncer­tain­ty into war court pro­ceed­ings already steeped in chaos. In a one-sen­­­tence email to the McClatchey news ser­vice on July 5, an Air Force spokesper­son con­firmed that Spath​“has an approved retire­ment date of Nov. 1, 2018,” well before the controversial trial…

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Jul 122018

Alabama Prisoners End Execution Lawsuit, State Will Drop Lethal Injection in Favor of Nitrogen Gas

Alabama will not exe­cute eight death-row pris­on­ers by means of the prob­lem­at­ic lethal-injec­­­tion pro­to­col they have been chal­leng­ing, but will instead car­ry out the exe­cu­tions using lethal gas. In a Joint Motion to Dismiss the pris­on­ers’ fed­er­al lit­i­ga­tion over the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col, filed on July 10, 2018, the par­ties agreed that the law­suit had been ren­dered moot by the state’s pas­sage of leg­is­la­tion autho­riz­ing execution by…

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Jul 102018

Kentucky Legislature Conducts Hearing on the Commonwealth’s Death Penalty

A joint com­mit­tee of the Kentucky leg­is­la­ture con­duct­ed a hear­ing on July 6, 2018 on the Commonwealth’s rarely used death penal­ty, includ­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion by sup­port­ers and oppo­nents of a bill to abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The General Assembly’s Interim Joint Committee on Judiciary took tes­ti­mo­ny from pros­e­cu­tors, defense attor­neys, cor­rec­tion­al offi­cials, and leg­is­la­tors on issues rang­ing from costs and arbi­trari­ness to the length of…

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News 

Jul 092018

Death-Penalty Experts Describe Justice Kennedy’s Mixed Legacy on Capital Punishment

Justice Anthony Kennedy​’s votes swung both to the right and to the left on death-penal­­­ty issues, pro­fes­sors Carol Steiker (pic­tured, l.) of Harvard Law School and her broth­er, Jordan Steiker (pic­tured, r.) of the University of Texas School of Law write in a com­men­tary for SCOTUSblog,​“but [he] declined to swing for the fences.” The Steikers, who co-authored the acclaimed book, Courting Death: The Supreme Court and…

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Jul 062018

Colorado Jury Returns Life Sentence in Third Consecutive High-Profile Death-Penalty Case

A Colorado Springs jury reject­ed a death sen­tence for Glen Law Galloway (pic­tured), mark­ing the third high-pro­­­file case since 2015 in which Colorado jurors have select­ed a life sen­tence over death. The ver­dict brought to an end El Paso County​’s first cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion in more than a decade, after a six-week tri­al in a court­room with a $50,000 makeover that includ­ed new audio and video tech­nol­o­gy and a remod­eled jury box…

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Jul 052018

Nevada Announces New Drug Protocol Eight Days Before Scheduled Execution

Eight days before the sched­uled July 11, 2018 exe­cu­tion of Scott Dozier, the Nevada Department of Corrections issued a new lethal-injec­­­tion pro­to­col, switch­ing the drugs the state intends to use in car­ry­ing out his exe­cu­tion. On July 3, the Department announced that it plans to use an untest­ed three-drug pro­to­col of the seda­tive mida­zo­lam, the opi­oid fen­tanyl, and the par­a­lyt­ic cisatracuri­um. The last-minute change prompted an…

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