Entries by Death Penalty Information Center
News
Nov 17, 2017
Nevada Pardons Man Imprisoned 21 Years as a Result of Wrongful Capital Murder Prosecution
Nevada has pardoned Fred Steese (pictured), who spent 21 years in prison after Las Vegas prosecutors wrongly sought the death penalty against him while witholding evidence that he was not even in the state at the time the murder occurred. In what news reports described as“a clear rebuke to the Las Vegas prosecutors,” the Nevada Board of Pardons Commissioners voted 8 – 1 on November 8 to grant Steese…
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Nov 16, 2017
Ohio Halts Execution of Physically Debilitated Prisoner After It Cannot Find Vein for Intravenous Line
Having failed to find a suitable vein in which to set an intravenous execution line, Ohio called off the scheduled November 15 execution of gravely ill and physically debilitated death-row prisoner, Alva Campbell…
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Nov 15, 2017
Utah County Fires Lawyer Who Criticized Its Underfunding of Death-Penalty Appeals
A Utah county has fired an appeals lawyer who had publicly criticized the county’s underfunding of death-penalty…
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Nov 14, 2017
Ohio Set to Execute Gravely Ill Prisoner, Alva Campbell
Ohio death-row prisoner Alva Campbell (pictured) is 69, suffers from severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, is unable to walk without a walker, relies on a colostomy bag that hangs outside his body, requires four breathing treatments each day, may have lung cancer, and is reportedly allergic to midazolam, the controversial first drug in the state’s lethal-injection process. Prison personnel have been unable to find veins…
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Nov 13, 2017
Former Florida Death-Row Doctor: Experience of Veterans Highlights Death Penalty’s Failures
A former Florida death-row doctor says the experience of U.S. military veterans who have been sentenced to death provides a lens through which the public can better understand some of the failures of the state’s death penalty and identify opportunities for meaningful reform of the criminal…
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Nov 10, 2017
Nebraska Proposes Untried Lethal-Injection Combination as Nevada Court Halts Execution With Similar Drugs
As Nebraska announced its intention to use a never-before-tried four-drug execution combination featuring the opiod pain medication fentanyl and the paralytic drug cisatracurium, a Nevada judge issued a stay of execution that put off the nation’s first attempted execution…
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Nov 09, 2017
Anti-Death Penalty District Attorney Elected in Philadelphia, the Nation’s 3rd Largest Death Penalty County
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—the nation’s third largest death-penalty county—has elected as its new district attorney a candidate who ran on a platform of ending mass incarceration and eschewing use of the death penalty. Democrat Lawrence Krasner (pictured), a longtime civil rights lawyer and opponent of the death penalty, who once joked that he’d“spent a career becoming completely unelectable,”…
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Nov 08, 2017
Court Rulings Raise Questions of What Constitutes Incompetency and How is it Determined
Two recent high court rulings have raised questions of whether death-row prisoners are sufficiently mentally impaired to be deemed incompetent to be executed and who gets to make that determination. On November 7, the Arkansas Supreme Court issued an order staying the execution of death-row prisoner Jack Greene (pictured, left) to resolve whether that state’s mechanism to determine competency — giving the…
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Nov 07, 2017
NEW VOICES: Former Law Enforcement Officials Say Arizona, Kansas Should End Death Penalty
Former high-ranking law enforcement officials from Arizona and Kansas have called on their states to end the death penalty. In separate op-ed stories one week apart, former Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard (pictured, left) and former Kansas Secretary of Corrections Roger Werholtz (pictured, right) conclude that the capital punishment schemes in their states have failed and should be abandoned. In…
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Nov 06, 2017
Texas Set to Execute Mexican National Despite Treaty Violations, Innocence Claim
Texas plans to execute a Mexican national on November 8, despite claims that he is innocent and that Texas violated U.S. international treaty obligations by denying him access to legal assistance from his government. Senior Mexican diplomats called the death sentence imposed on Ruben Ramírez Cárdenas (pictured)“illegal” and a violation of due process. In a news conference in Mexico City on November 6, Carlos Sada, Mexico’s deputy…
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