Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

FBI records show that state claims that exe­cu­tion drug sup­pli­ers have been the sub­ject of threats by anti-death penal­ty activists are large­ly unsub­stan­ti­at­ed and exag­ger­at­ed, accord­ing to an inves­ti­ga­tion by BuzzFeed News. BuzzFeed found that​“few con­crete exam­ples” of the alleged harass­ment, intim­i­da­tion, and phys­i­cal threats states claim have been made against drug sup­pli­ers, and that​“the states’ mar­quee exam­ple — in which the FBI…

In a 5 – 2 order, with two judges dis­sent­ing and two oth­ers not par­tic­i­pat­ing, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed the sched­uled August 31 exe­cu­tion of Rolando Ruiz (pic­tured). The order did not spec­i­fy the rea­son why the court issued the stay, say­ing only that after review­ing a new chal­lenge to Ruiz’s death sen­tence that his lawyers had filed,​“we have deter­mined that his exe­cu­tion should be stayed pend­ing fur­ther order by this…

Between 2010 and 2015, only 16 coun­ties in the United States imposed five or more death sen­tences. Duval County, Florida, which con­sis­tent­ly ranks among the most puni­tive death sen­tenc­ing coun­ties in the coun­try, sen­tenced 25 capital…

A group of 16 for­mer state and fed­er­al judges and three of the nation’s pre­em­i­nent crim­i­nal defense orga­ni­za­tions have filed briefs in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in sup­port of Missouri death row inmate Mark Christeson​’s efforts to be afford­ed a mean­ing­ful oppor­tu­ni­ty to inves­ti­gate and present his claims to the fed­er­al courts. Christeson was near­ly exe­cut­ed in 2014 with­out ever hav­ing any fed­er­al court hear…

Two Philadelphia, Pennsylvania cap­i­tal cas­es involv­ing men who have long assert­ed their inno­cence reached major mile­stones on August 23, with one win­ning an appeal grant­i­ng him a new tri­al and a jury acquit­ting a sec­ond in his retri­al. Both cas­es involved alle­ga­tions of seri­ous police and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. James Dennis (pic­tured), who has been on the Commonwealth’s death row for near­ly 25 years, was grant­ed a new trial by…

As states and coun­ties across the United States are using the death penal­ty with decreas­ing fre­quen­cy, a new report issued by the Fair Punishment Project on August 23 explores the out­lier prac­tices of 16 U.S. coun­ties that are buck­ing the nation­al trend and dis­pro­por­tion­al­ly pur­su­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. These juris­dic­tions, rep­re­sent­ing one-half of one per­cent of all U.S. coun­ties or coun­ty equiv­a­lents, are the only locales in the United States to have imposed…

A recent poll by researcher Craig Haney, a Professor of Psychology at the University of California — Santa Cruz, has found that a​“strong major­i­ty” of Florida respon­dents pre­fer life with­out parole to the death penal­ty for peo­ple con­vict­ed of mur­der, even as many har­bor con­tin­u­ing mis­con­cep­tions about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment that would pre­dis­pose them to support the…

As his August 24 exe­cu­tion date approach­es, Jeffrey Wood​’s case has gar­nered mount­ing atten­tion from groups and indi­vid­u­als call­ing on the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Gov. Greg Abbott to com­mute Wood’s sen­tence. These diverse voic­es include a con­ser­v­a­tive Texas state rep­re­sen­ta­tive, a group of evan­gel­i­cal lead­ers, and the edi­to­r­i­al boards of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and several Texas…

Harris County, Texas has sent more peo­ple to death row than any oth­er coun­ty in the United States and Jerry Guerinot (pic­tured) was defense coun­sel for twen­­­ty-one of them. His death-sen­­­tenced clients includ­ed two who were juve­niles at the time of the crime and anoth­er who was lat­er freed after pros­e­cu­tors dropped charges against him. Labeled by some as​“the worst lawyer in the United States,” in forty years of prac­tice, none of Guerinot’s…

The Equal Justice Initiative has announced plans to con­struct a Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama to com­mem­o­rate the vic­tims of ter­ror lynch­ings in the American South. In a New Yorker pro­file of EJI exec­u­tive direc­tor Bryan Stevenson, Jeffrey Toobin describes EJI​’s crim­i­nal defense work and the gen­e­sis of the lynch­ing memo­r­i­al.​“There’s no ques­tion that we have a long his­to­ry of see­ing peo­ple through [a] lens of racial dif­fer­ence. It’s…