Entries by Death Penalty Information Center


News 

Mar 012018

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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News 

Feb 282018

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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News 

Feb 272018

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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News 

Feb 222018

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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News 

Feb 212018

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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News 

Feb 202018

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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News 

Feb 192018

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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