Entries by Death Penalty Information Center
News
Mar 02, 2018
New Polls in Two Florida Counties that Heavily Use the Death Penalty Find Voters Prefer Life Sentences Instead
Recently released poll results from two Florida counties that have heavily used the death penalty suggest that voters actually prefer life-sentencing…
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Mar 01, 2018
Virginia Death-Row Prisoners Win “Landmark” Prison Conditions Lawsuit
In what lawyers for Virginia death-row prisoners have called“a landmark ruling,” a federal judge has issued an injunction barring the Commonwealth from subjecting prisoners who have been sentenced to death to automatic solitary confinement, physical isolation from visitors and other prisoners, and other…
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Feb 28, 2018
OUTLIER COUNTIES: Death Sentences, Executions More Likely in Hamilton County Than Elsewhere in Ohio
With 24 prisoners currently condemned to die, Hamilton County—home to Cincinnati—has the largest death row of any county in Ohio, despite a smaller population and a lower murder rate than other parts of the state. Ten of the 55 prisoners executed in the state since the 1970s were sentenced to death in Hamilton County, again more than any…
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Feb 27, 2018
Arizona Prosecutors Drop Death Penalty in Two Cases, Citing High Costs and Lengthy Legal Process
Prosecutors in Mohave County, Arizona announced in February that they will drop the pursuit of the death penalty in two murder cases in the county. Justin Rector and Darrell Ketchner were separately charged with first-degree murder, and officials said their defense teams had already spent over $2.2 million preparing for trials that are still far from taking place. Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith said,“Everybody’s looking to save money and these death…
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Feb 26, 2018
U.S. Supreme Court to Decide if Alabama Can Execute Prisoner With Vascular Dementia and No Memory of the Crime
Less than a week after Alabama halted the failed execution of a terminally ill prisoner whose veins were not suitable for intraveneous injection, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear the case of another Alabama prisoner whose medical condition, his lawyers say, make him constitutionally unfit…
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Feb 23, 2018
Three Controversial Executions Turn Into A Commutation, An Execution, and an Execution Failure
Three states—Alabama, Florida, and Texas—prepared to carry out controversial executions on Thursday, February 22, all scheduled for 7 PM Eastern time, but by the end of the night, two…
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Feb 22, 2018
Tennessee Attorney General Seeks Eight Execution Dates as Prisoners Challenge “Torturous” Drug Protocol
Thirty-three Tennessee death-row prisoners have filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality and legality of the state’s new execution protocol, after Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery (pictured) asked the state supreme court to expedite executions before one of the state’s execution drugs expires. On February 14, Slatery asked the court to schedule eight execution to be carried out before June 1. Attorneys for the…
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Feb 21, 2018
Missouri Executed 17 Prisoners With Drugs Secretly Obtained From ‘High-Risk’ Pharmacy Cited for Hazardous Practices
BuzzFeed News investigation has disclosed that Missouri carried out seventeen executions between 2014 and 2017 using supplies of the drug pentobarbital it secretly obtained from a pharmacy the Food and Drug Administration had classified as“high risk” because of repeated serious health violations. The February 20 exposé describes a complex system of clandestine meetings, code names, and undocumented cash payments that Missouri…
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Feb 20, 2018
Lack of Death-Penalty Counsel Brings Guantánamo War Crimes Trial to a Halt
A Guantánamo military commission judge has indefinitely suspended proceedings in the death-penalty trial of Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, accused of planning al-Qaida’s alleged 2000 bombing of the Navy warship USS Cole off the coast of Yemen. Expressing exasperation over his continuing inability to compel civilian death-penalty lawyers to return to the case, Air Force Colonel Vance Spath (pictured) halted the…
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Feb 19, 2018
Junk Forensics, Misconduct, and an Inept Defense Raise Questions of Innocence in Arizona Child-Rape/Murder Case
Arizona death-row prisoner Barry Jones (pictured) has said for the twenty-three years he has been on death row that he never raped or murdered his girlfriend’s 4‑year-old daughter, Rachel Gray. In a pair of recent articles for The Intercept, reporter Liliana Segura describes the inconsistent medical testimony, police“tunnel vision,” inept defense lawyering, and other“hallmarks of wrongful convictions” that led to a federal…
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