Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

On December 14, 2023, Lake County, Florida pros­e­cu­tors announced they are seek­ing the death penal­ty for a man accused of com­mit­ting the sex­u­al bat­tery of a minor under the age of twelve. A state­ment from the office of State Attorney William Gladson said the deci­sion reflects the ​“sever­i­ty of the crime and its impact on the com­mu­ni­ty.” Earlier this year, Governor Ron DeSantis signed leg­is­la­tion that expands death penal­ty eli­gi­bil­i­ty to those con­vict­ed of sex crimes against chil­dren. This is…

A new report released by the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty high­lights Texas’ con­tin­u­ing out­lier prac­tices in the admin­is­tra­tion of the death penal­ty. As one of just five states car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions this year, Texas is respon­si­ble for a third of the 24 exe­cu­tions in 2023. Of the eight men exe­cut­ed, six dis­played sig­nif­i­cant intel­lec­tu­al or men­tal health impair­ments, includ­ing brain dam­age, intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, and a range of mental illnesses. ​“The vast majority of…

A pro­posed death penal­ty repeal bill in the Ohio leg­is­la­ture is draw­ing atten­tion to the state’s five-year pause on exe­cu­tions, and lead­ing state offi­cials from both par­ties to ques­tion whether the death penal­ty sys­tem is work­ing. Ohio Attorney General David Yost (pic­tured) summed up the sit­u­a­tion by saying, ​“This sys­tem sat­is­fies nobody. Those who oppose the death penal­ty want it abol­ished alto­geth­er, not tick­ing away like a time bomb that might or might not explode. Those who support the…

In a recent­ly pub­lished aca­d­e­m­ic arti­cle, Emory University History Professor Daniel LaChance writes about an impor­tant and under­rec­og­nized dis­tinc­tion in the way news­pa­per edi­tors and jour­nal­ists cov­ered the exe­cu­tions of Black and white men in the late 19^th and ear­ly 20^th cen­turies. Professor LaChance argues that the por­tray­als of the defen­dants made legal executions ​“a high-sta­­tus pun­ish­ment that respect­ed the white­ness of those who suf­fered it.” While the length and detail of articles…

In North Carolina, a coali­tion of activists is call­ing on Governor Roy Cooper to com­mute the death sen­tences of 136 people ​“as an act of racial jus­tice” before he leaves office in 2024. Edward ​“Ed” Chapman, a death row exoneree who spent 14 years on death row, along with oth­er advo­cates with the North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, are urg­ing Gov. Cooper to grant clemen­cy to all death-sen­­tenced indi­vid­u­als in North Carolina ​“because of the injus­tices of the death…

In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPIC, Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with John Bessler (pic­tured), Professor of Law at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Professor Bessler is the author of sev­er­al books on the death penal­ty, includ­ing his 2023 book The Death Penalty’s Denial of Fundamental Human Rights: International Law, State Practice, and the Emerging Abolitionist Norm. In his most recent book, Professor Bessler argues that the death penalty…

On November 30, 2023, the Mississippi Supreme Court ordered that the state’s request to set an exe­cu­tion date for death row pris­on­er Willie Manning be held until the court rules on a recent peti­tion seek­ing to bring new evi­dence of Mr. Manning’s inno­cence. Mr. Manning’s attor­neys had filed a peti­tion at the court on September 29, ask­ing for an oppor­tu­ni­ty to present recan­ta­tions from jail­house infor­mants who tes­ti­fied against Mr. Manning, as well as new expert analy­sis debunking the…

Oklahoma exe­cut­ed Phillip Hancock (pic­tured) on November 30, 2023, fol­low­ing Governor Kevin Stitt’s rejec­tion of the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board’s rec­om­men­da­tion that his sen­tence be f com­mut­ed to life with­out parole. The governor’s inde­ci­sion left Mr. Hancock wait­ing anx­ious­ly right up to the time of his sched­uled exe­cu­tion when the governor’s office told the prison war­den to pro­ceed. Mr. Hancock is the 123^rd per­son exe­cut­ed in Oklahoma since the rein­state­ment of the death penalty in…

Against a back­drop of high-pro­­file inno­cence cas­es and the U.S. Supreme Court’s seem­ing indif­fer­ence to them, the 2023 Gallup poll found that more Americans now believe that the death penal­ty is admin­is­tered unfair­ly than fair­ly. Use of the death penal­ty remained geo­graph­i­cal­ly iso­lat­ed, with only five states car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions and only sev­en impos­ing death sen­tences. For the ninth con­sec­u­tive year, few­er than 30 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed and few­er than 50 were sen­tenced to death.

Tomorrow, the Death Penalty Information Center will release a report that doc­u­ments how racial bias and vio­lence affect­ed the past use of the death penal­ty in Missouri and how that his­to­ry con­tin­ues to influ­ence the cur­rent admin­is­tra­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the state. Compromised Justice: How A Legacy of Racial Violence Informs Missouri’s Death Penalty Today, sched­uled for release on December 1, 2023, notes that his­tor­i­cal­ly and into the present…