Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

From 2007 to 2013, Dallas sentenced twelve capitally charged defendants to death — more than any other county in Texas — and Dallas ranks second nationally, behind only Harris County (Houston), in the number it has executed since 1972. But the county has not imposed any new death sentences since then, and the recent life sentences in the capital trials of Justin Smith and Erbie Bowser highlight a statewide trend away from the death penalty. Smith was charged with killing three and injuring two…

Robert Melson (pictured), an Alabama death-row prisoner whose clemency petition alleges that abandonment by his post-conviction lawyers prevented him from adequately challenging the flawed forensic evidence in his case, received a stay of execution from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11^th Circuit on a challenge to Alabama’s lethal-injection protocol. Melson was convicted of three murders at a Popeye’s restaurant in 1994. A survivor of the crime recognized one of two assailants as Cuhuatemoc…

The Indiana Court of Appeals has voided the state’s lethal-injection protocol. In a ruling on June 1, 2017, the state intermediate appeals court held that the Indiana Department of Corrections (DOC) had failed to comply with state rulemaking procedures when it adopted a never-before-used execution protocol without public notice or comment. In 2014, the DOC announced that it had adopted a new execution protocol “informally as an internal DOC policy.” The protocol called for a three-drug…

Todd Kohlhepp (pictured) pleaded guilty to seven South Carolina murders on May 26, 2017 and was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences, plus 60 additional years for the kidnapping and sexual assault of surviving victim Kala Brown. Kohlhepp made a deal with prosecutors to avoid the death penalty, providing information that solved four murders at a motorcycle store in 2003 and sparing Brown and the families of the murder victims from enduring a lengthy trial and appeals process. Seventh…

A Las Vegas, Nevada, judge — who, as a prosecutor, committed misconduct in several death-penalty trials — now faces judicial misconduct charges arising out of another murder case in which a defendant he prosecuted has been granted a hearing to prove her innocence. The Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline has charged Bill Kephart (pictured) with several violations of the judicial code of conduct for giving a media interview about his controversial 2002 prosecution of Kirstin Lobato that the…

On Friday, May 26, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey (pictured) signed into law a statute denominated the “Fair Justice Act,” which is designed to shorten the state death-penalty appeals process. The law constricts the amount of time death-row prisoners have to file appeals, imposes time limits for judges to rule on appeals, and requires prisoners to pursue their direct appeal and post-conviction appeal simultaneously, including raising claims of appellate counsel’s ineffectiveness while appellate…

The Texas 3^rd District Court of Appeals has rejected claims made by state corrections officials that disclosure of the identity of its supplier of the execution drug pentobarbital would expose the company to a “substantial threat of physical harm.” Finding these claims to be “mere speculation,” the appeals court ruled on May 25, 2017, that Texas must disclose the identity of the compounding pharmacy that supplied execution drugs to the state in 2014. The ruling upholds a Travis County District…

Thirty years after the crime that sent him to Pennsylvania’s death row and 15 years after his case was argued in the U.S. Supreme Court, David Sattazahn was resentenced to life without parole — the sentence he initially received in his first trial in 1991. Prosecutors, defense attorneys, and the victim’s family all agreed that a life sentence was the best outcome at this point in the case. Sattazahn was convicted of first-degree murder and the court sentenced him to life in prison in 1991 when…

Tommy Arthur (pictured), an Alabama death-row prisoner whose 35-year journey through the court system has frustrated both proponents and opponents of the death penalty, is scheduled to be executed on May 25, 2017, the eighth time Alabama has set an execution date in his case. Arthur — whose conviction and death sentence has twice been overturned by the courts and was sentenced to death by his trial judge based upon a non-unanimous jury sentencing recommendation — has steadfastly maintained his…

On May 22, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Florida’s petition for a writ of certiorari in Florida v. Hurst, refusing to disturb a decision of the Florida Supreme Court that had declared it unconstitutional for judges to impose death sentences after one or more jurors in the case had voted for life. The ruling effectively ends Florida prosecutors’ efforts to reverse the state court ruling — which could overturn approximately 200 death sentences in the state — requiring that capital sentencing juries…