Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Oklahoma will not exe­cute any­one in 2017 and, with­out an exe­cu­tion pro­to­col in place, can­not seek any exe­cu­tion dates through at least January 2018, mark­ing the longest peri­od of time between exe­cu­tions in the state in the mod­ern era of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. As part of an agree­ment in a fed­er­al law­suit chal­leng­ing the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dures, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office may not request exe­cu­tion dates for any pris­on­er for at…

In a 5 – 2 deci­sion that left both pro­po­nents and oppo­nents of the death penal­ty declar­ing vic­to­ry, the Supreme Court of California has upheld the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Proposition 66, a vot­er ini­tia­tive intend­ed to speed up death-penal­­­ty appeals and exe­cu­tions, but severe­ly lim­it­ed the scope of its core pro­vi­sions. In Briggs v. Brown, the court on August 24 sus­tained por­tions of the mea­sure that shift­ed which court will…

As Florida pre­pared to exe­cute Mark Asay (pic­tured) on August 24, the state’s death-penal­­­ty prac­tices came under fire from human rights groups, crim­i­nal jus­tice reform­ers, and one of the world’s largest phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies. Asay was exe­cut­ed despite the Florida Supreme Court’s recog­ni­tion that his death sen­tence — imposed by a judge after three jurors had vot­ed for life — was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly imposed and that the court…

In a case that led to a land­mark U.S. Supreme Court deci­sion on judi­cial bias, a divid­ed Pennsylvania Supreme Court on August 22 upheld a low­er court’s order over­turn­ing the death penal­ty imposed on Terrance Williams (pic­tured) for the mur­der of a Philadelphia church dea­con. The court split 2 – 2 on the out­come of a new appeal that had been ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court after for­mer Philadelphia District Attorney Ronald…

Calling a sen­tence of death​“the ulti­mate, per­ma­nent pun­ish­ment,” Missouri Governor Eric Greitens (pic­tured) has stayed the exe­cu­tion of Marcellus Williams​“in light of new infor­ma­tion” that Williams’s lawyers say demon­strate he is inno­cent of the mur­der of for­mer St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter…

Citing​“relent­less non-com­­­pli­ance” with court orders and​“chron­ic obstruc­tion­ism” by a pros­e­cu­tion team it says​“has effec­tive­ly com­pro­mised” Scott Dekraai​’s rights to due process and a fair penal­ty tri­al, a California tri­al court has barred pros­e­cu­tors from pur­su­ing the death penal­ty in the worst mass killing in Orange County…

The states of Arkansas and Nevada have announced that they have obtained new sup­plies of exe­cu­tion drugs that will per­mit them to car­ry out two exe­cu­tions in what crit­ics have called questionable…

Merck Chief Executive Officer Kenneth C. Frazier (pic­tured) resigned from the president’s American Manufacturing Council on August 14, say­ing “[a]s CEO of Merck and as a mat­ter of per­son­al con­science, I feel a respon­si­bil­i­ty to take a stand against intol­er­ance and extrem­ism.” In a state­ment post­ed on Merck’s Twitter account, Frazier said:​“Our coun­try’s strength stems from its diver­si­ty and the con­tri­bu­tions made by men and women of…

After hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly grant­ed Marcellus Williams (pic­tured) a stay of exe­cu­tion in 2015 to per­mit DNA test­ing in his case, the Missouri Supreme Court on August 15 sum­mar­i­ly denied him a new exe­cu­tion stay, despite recent­ly obtained results of that test­ing that sup­port his innocence…

An Arizona death-row pris­on­er has peti­tioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment statute, argu­ing that Arizona’s sen­tenc­ing scheme​“utter­ly fails” the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly required task of lim­it­ing the death penal­ty to the worst crimes and…