Entries by Death Penalty Information Center
News
Mar 15, 2018
Oklahoma Announces Plans to Execute Prisoners with Nitrogen Gas
At a news conference on March 14, Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter and Corrections Director Joe M. Allbaugh announced that the state plans to switch its method of execution from lethal injection to nitrogen…
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Mar 14, 2018
California Supreme Court Grants New Trial to Man Sent to Death Row 25 Years Ago by False Forensic Evidence
The California Supreme Court has vacated the conviction of Vicente Figueroa Benavides (pictured), saying that the forensic evidence that sent the former Mexican farmworker to death row 25 years ago was“extensive,”“pervasive,”“impactful,” and…
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Mar 14, 2018
California Supreme Court Grants New Trial to Man Sent to Death Row 25 Years Ago by False Forensic Evidence
The California Supreme Court has vacated the conviction of Vicente Figueroa Benavides (pictured), saying that the forensic evidence that sent the former Mexican farmworker to death row 25 years ago was“extensive,”“pervasive,”“impactful,” and“false.” Benavides, now 68, was sentenced to death in 1993 after being found guilty of brutally murdering Consuelo Verdugo, his girlfriend’s 21-month-old toddler, by raping and anally…
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Mar 13, 2018
Georgia Prisoner Seeks Clemency with New Evidence of Possible Innocence
Carlton Gary, a Georgia death-row prisoner scheduled for execution on March 15, is asking the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant him clemency on the basis of new and withheld evidence that undercuts the prosecution testimony against him and suggests he did not commit the crimes for which he was sentenced to death. Gary was convicted of raping and killing three women in the 1970s, in what prosecutors have claimed was part of…
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Mar 12, 2018
Global Study Highlights Systemic Risks of Wrongful Capital Convictions
“In 2016, at least 60 prisoners were exonerated after having been condemned to death, in countries across the geographical and political spectrum,” according to a new report on wrongful capital convictions by the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide. The report, Justice Denied: A Global Study of Wrongful Death Row Convictions, analyzes risk factors for executing the innocent that are endemic in death penalty cases irrespective…
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Mar 09, 2018
Attempts Both to Repeal and to Restore Death-Penalty Statutes Fail in Legislatures Across the Country
In Washington and Utah, bipartisan or Republican-led efforts at death-penalty repeal fell short, a month after death-penalty proponents abandoned efforts to reinstate capital punishment in New Mexico and Iowa. In Washington, a bipartisan push to replace the death penalty with life without possibility of release was introduced at the request of Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson with…
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Mar 08, 2018
After Supreme Court Denies Them Relief, Pennsylvania Death-Row Prisoners Resentenced to Life
Two former Pennsylvania death-row prisoners, whose death sentences were overturned by federal courts after the United States Supreme Court had ruled against them, have been resentenced to life…
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Mar 07, 2018
Email Shows Texas DA Had Phone Records Showing Alfred Brown Was Innocent, But Prosecuted Him Anyway
According to newly disclosed records, the Harris County assistant district attorney who prosecuted Texas death-row exoneree Alfred DeWayne Brown was aware of phone records that corroborated Brown’s assertion of innocence long before the case went to trial, but withheld the records from the defense and intimidated a witness who original testimony was supported by the records into falsely testifying…
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Mar 06, 2018
Alva Campbell, Terminally Ill Prisoner Who Survived Botched Execution Attempt, Dies on Ohio Death Row
Alva Campbell (pictured), the terminally ill death-row prisoner who survived a botched execution attempt by the state of Ohio on November 15,…
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Mar 05, 2018
North Carolina Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Racial Justice Act Death-Penalty Cases
The North Carolina Supreme Court announced on March 2 that it will hear appeals from three of the four prisoners whose death sentences were reduced to life without parole under the state’s Racial Justice Act, then reinstated after the legislature…
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