Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

The United States Supreme Court will review a Louisiana death-penal­­ty case to answer the question ​“Is it uncon­sti­tu­tion­al for defense coun­sel to con­cede an accused’s guilt over the accused’s express objec­tion?” On September 27, the court agreed to hear McCoy v. Louisiana, a case in which defense coun­sel informed the jury in his open­ing argu­ment that Robert McCoy (pic­tured) — who was charged with mur­der­ing the son, moth­er, and step­fa­ther of his…

After stay­ing Tilon Carter’s exe­cu­tion in May to con­sid­er alle­ga­tions that his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence were the prod­uct of false or mis­lead­ing foren­sic tes­ti­mo­ny, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has now ruled that Carter (pic­tured) is enti­tled to an evi­den­tiary hear­ing on two of his claims. In a September 27 order, the appeals court direct­ed the Tarrant County (Fort Worth) tri­al court to con­duct a hear­ing on whether Texas ​“pre­sent­ed false or…

Three hours after his exe­cu­tion was sched­uled to begin, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the exe­cu­tion of Keith Tharpe (pic­tured), a Georgia death-row pris­on­er who sought review of his claim that he was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly sen­tenced to death because a juror whom Tharpe alleged ​“har­bored pro­found racial ani­mus against African Americans vot­ed to impose the death penal­ty … because of his…

Death sen­tences are sharply down in North Carolina and the com­bi­na­tion of cost con­cerns and more effec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion have made them pro­gres­sive­ly rare. In an inter­view with The Hickory Daily Record, David Learner, District Attorney for the 25^th pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al dis­trict encom­pass­ing Catawba, Caldwell, and Burke coun­ties, who has per­son­al­ly tried two death-eli­gi­ble cas­es, says ​“It’s extra­or­di­nar­i­ly dif­fi­cult to get a death ver­dict. … [Y]ou come to…

Recent court rul­ings in Arkansas and Arizona reach­ing oppo­site out­comes high­light the con­tin­u­ing con­tro­ver­sy over state prac­tices keep­ing infor­ma­tion relat­ing to state acqui­si­tion of drugs for use in exe­cut­ing pris­on­ers secret from the…

Two African nations—The Gambia and Madagascar—act­ing in con­nec­tion with the 72^nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, have tak­en major steps com­mit­ting them­selves to the irre­versible abo­li­tion of the death…

An Arapahoe County judge has denied the appeal of Colorado death-row pris­on­er Sir Mario Owens (pic­tured), despite find­ing that pros­e­cu­tors with­held evi­dence and failed to dis­close mon­ey, gifts, and favors they pro­vid­ed infor­mants in exchange for their tes­ti­mo­ny. In a 1,343-page Order and Opinion issued on September 14, Senior Judge Christopher Munch found that coun­ty pros­e­cu­tors had pre­sent­ed false evi­dence from two of their most critical…

In a racial­ly charged case rais­ing ques­tions of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al over­charg­ing, inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and ques­tion­able jury prac­tices, Kharon Davis (pic­tured), an African-American man charged with cap­i­tal mur­der in Dothan, Alabama, has been impris­oned for 10 years with­out tri­al. Davis — who has con­sis­tent­ly main­tained his inno­cence and whose pri­or offense was dri­ving with­out a license — was 22 years old when he and two oth­ers were arrested for…

The failed cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion of Scott Dekraai for the worst mass mur­der in Orange County, California his­to­ry has cost tax­pay­ers more than $2.5 mil­lion — more than dou­ble the aver­age cost of a California death-penal­­ty case — and the pric­etag for con­tin­u­ing inves­ti­ga­tions into offi­cial mis­con­duct by the coun­ty dis­trict attor­ney’s and sher­if­f’s offices con­tin­ues to rise. Unlike most cap­i­tal cas­es, the costs were not pri­mar­i­ly for the tri­al itself, but the product…

Two pro­fes­sors of soci­ol­o­gy and crim­i­nol­o­gy who reviewed more than 1500 cas­es in which con­vict­ed pris­on­ers were lat­er exon­er­at­ed have found a direct rela­tion­ship between the seri­ous­ness of the crime and mis­car­riages of justice: ​“the ​‘worst of the worst crimes,’” they say, ​“pro­duce the ​‘worst of the worst evi­dence.’ ” In their research — report­ed in the law review arti­cle, The Worst of the Worst: Heinous Crimes and Erroneous Evidence—University of Denver pro­fes­sors Scott…