Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

“Americans’ sup­port for the death penal­ty has dipped to a lev­el not seen in 45 years,” accord­ing to the results of the 2017 Gallup poll released on October 26. Gallup report­ed that, in a nation­wide sur­vey of 1,028 adults polled October 5 – 11, 2017, 55% of Americans said they are ​“in favor of the death penal­ty for a per­son con­vict­ed of mur­der,” down from a report­ed 60% in October 2016. The five per­­cen­t­age-point decline rep­re­sent­ed an 8% decrease in the lev­el of sup­port for the…

A fed­er­al judge has void­ed a con­tract that had pro­vid­ed Orlando-based attor­ney Patrick Megaro hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars of com­pen­sa­tion at the expense of Henry McCollum (pic­tured left, with his broth­er Leon Brown), an intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled for­mer death-row pris­on­er who was exon­er­at­ed in 2014 after DNA test­ing by the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission showed that he had not com­mit­ted the bru­tal rape and mur­der of a young girl for which he had…

Two recent appel­late deci­sions by the Texas courts have thrust into the nation­al spot­light the con­tin­u­ing con­tro­ver­sy over the use of false or flawed foren­sic tes­ti­mo­ny to secure con­vic­tions in death penalty…

The long-term decline in exe­cu­tions in the United States will con­tin­ue in 2017, accord­ing to an analy­sis of exe­cu­tion data by the Death Penalty Information Center. Although the num­ber of exe­cu­tions in the United States in 2017 will sur­pass the 20 exe­cu­tions car­ried out last year — which had been a 25-year low — the data reflects that long-term, mid-term, and short-term exe­cu­tion trends in the United States will continue to…

Alabama exe­cut­ed Torrey McNabb (pic­tured) on October 19, amid ques­tions of state inter­fer­ence in the judi­cial process, result­ing in anoth­er appar­ent fail­ure by the drug mida­zo­lam to ren­der a pris­on­er insen­sate dur­ing an exe­cu­tion. Alabama prison offi­cials defend­ed the exe­cu­tion — which took 35 min­utes — as con­form­ing with state pro­to­col, most of which has been with­held from the pub­lic. Montgomery Advertiser exe­cu­tion wit­ness Brian Lyman…

The United States Supreme Court has ordered the Florida Supreme Court to recon­sid­er a deci­sion that had denied a death-row pris­on­er’s claim that he was inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because he has Intellectual Disability. On October 16, the Court reversed and remand­ed the case of Tavares Wright (pic­tured, left), direct­ing the Florida courts to recon­sid­er his intel­lec­­tu­al-dis­­a­bil­i­­ty claim in light of the con­sti­tu­tion­al stan­dard the Court…

County Commissioners in Pennington County, South Dakota have approved bud­get increas­es of a half-mil­lion dol­lars each for the coun­ty’s courts and its pub­lic defend­er office for 2018, large­ly as a result of two high-pro­­file death-penal­­ty pros­e­cu­tions. Taxpayers will shoul­der most of the finan­cial bur­den result­ing from the cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions of Rapid City defen­dants Jonathon Klinetobe and Richard Hirth, charged with murder,…

Signaling a strength­en­ing of the Catholic Church’s offi­cial oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, Pope Francis (pic­tured) marked the 25^th anniver­sary of the Catholic Church’s pro­mul­ga­tion of amend­ments to its Catechism by declar­ing the death penalty ​“con­trary to the Gospel” and ​“an inhu­mane mea­sure that, regard­less of how it is car­ried out, abas­es human dig­ni­ty.” During Vatican cer­e­monies on October 11 com­mem­o­rat­ing the 1992 amend­ments, Pope Francis said that the death penalty is…

The U.S. Supreme Court has denied review of a peti­tion filed by lawyers on behalf of Abd al Rahim al Nashiri—accused of orches­trat­ing al-Qaida’s October 12, 2000 sui­cide bomb­ing of the USS Cole war­ship off the coast of Yemen—chal­leng­ing the legal­i­ty of his death penal­ty tri­al before a Guantánamo Bay mil­i­tary com­mis­sion. But in what has been described as ​“a stun­ning set­back” to what would have been the first death-penal­­ty tri­al held before the…

An Arkansas tri­al judge has dis­missed all charges against for­mer death-row pris­on­er, Rickey Dale Newman (pic­tured), set­ting him free on October 11 after hav­ing spent near­ly 17 years in cus­tody fol­low­ing the February 2001 mur­der of a tran­sient woman in a ​“hobo park” on the out­skirts of Van Buren, Arkansas. Newman became the 160^th per­son since 1973 to be exon­er­at­ed after hav­ing hav­ing been wrong­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death. Newman, a for­mer Marine with…