Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Jessie Dotson, a man sentenced to death for killing six people in 2008 in the Binghampton neighborhood of Memphis, Tennessee, has filed a petition for a writ of a habeas corpus asking a judge to vacate his conviction and death sentence. His petition alleges that he is innocent, that police coerced him to falsely confess, and that a number of prosecutorial and defense errors occurred at trial. Mr. Dotson has been on death row since 2008, when he was sentenced to death for the murders of four…

As more states consider nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method, three of the largest manufacturers in the U.S. have barred their products intended for life-saving measures from use in executions. “Airgas has not, and will not, supply nitrogen or other inert gases to induce hypoxia for the purpose of human execution,” the company, which is owned by the French multinational Air Liquid, announced following Oklahoma’s addition of nitrogen hypoxia to their execution protocol in 2015. The European…

In May 1990, Jonathan Eig, then a reporter for The New Orleans Times-Picayune, witnessed the electric-chair-execution of Dalton Prejean at Angola State Penitentiary for the 1977 murder of a Louisiana state trooper. Mr. Eig watched Mr. Prejean’s execution through an observation window, and reported seeing “his chest heave, his fists clench and his right wrist twist outward. A spark and a puff of smoke shot from the electrode attached to his left leg.” In the years following the execution, Mr.

This month, DPIC celebrates Women’s History Month with weekly profiles of notable women whose work was significant in the modern death penalty era. The first entry in this series is U.S. District Court Judge Natasha Merle. Judge Natasha Merle was nominated to the bench by President Biden in 2021 and became his 100^th confirmed judicial appointment. She has served on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York since August 2023. Judge Merle graduated with a B.A. from…

On February 28, 2023, the Oklahoma House Criminal Justice and Corrections Committee unanimously passed a bill that would pause all pending executions and prohibit new death sentences while an independent task force reviews current Oklahoma death penalty procedures. House Bill 3138, also known as the Death Penalty Moratorium Act, was introduced by Republican Representative Kevin McDugle and would create a five-member Death Penalty Reform Task Force to “study and report on the progress of…

Thomas Creech’s February 28 execution was halted after the Idaho Department of Correction execution team was unable to set an intravenous line after an hour of repeated attempts. Mr. Creech remained strapped to the gurney and conscious while unsuccessful attempts were made to access veins in both arms and legs. Officials did not disclose why the execution team was unable to establish an IV line, but the training and qualifications of staff, as well as the accessibility and quality of Mr.

This month, DPIC celebrates Black History Month with weekly profiles of notable Black Americans whose work affected the modern death penalty era. The fourth and final entry in this series is lawyer and civil rights activist Elaine Jones, former president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and counsel of record in Furman v. Georgia. Elaine Jones was born in Norfolk, Virginia on March 2, 1944, the daughter of a railroad porter and a school teacher. She received a Bachelor of…

A new report from the Texas Defender Service (TDS) titled “Arbitrary and Capricious: Examining Racial Disparities in Harris County’s Pursuit of Death Sentences” was published on February 22, 2024 and is the latest in series of TDS reports on use of the death penalty in Texas. The report focuses on Harris County’s outlier death penalty practices, both within the state and nationally. While more than half of the 254 counties in Texas have never imposed a death sentence, Harris County is…

A new report from Berkeley Law’s Death Penalty Clinic finds that just 19 states collect race and ethnicity information from prospective jurors, meaning that a majority of states cannot ensure that their juries are a “representative cross-section of the community” as mandated by the Constitution. The report, Guess Who’s Coming to Jury Duty?, recommends that all states “adopt a uniform questionnaire” to obtain prospective jurors’ race or ethnicity and that state courts annually publish…

Beginning February 28, 2024, a Johnston County, North Carolina, trial court will hear death row prisoner Hasson Bacote’s claims that racial discrimination in jury selection played a role in his capital sentencing. In 2009, North Carolina passed the Racial Justice Act (RJA), which allowed death-sentenced prisoners to challenge their sentences if they could demonstrate that race played a role in their sentencing and jury selection. Sentenced to death in 2009 by a nearly all-white jury, Mr.