Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Following sev­en months of inves­ti­ga­tion into the caus­es of Oklahoma​’s botched exe­cu­tion of Charles Warner using an unau­tho­rized exe­cu­tion drug and its near-exe­cu­­­tion of Richard Glossip with the same wrong drug, an Oklahoma grand jury issued a report on May 19 iden­ti­fy­ing a wide range of what it char­ac­ter­ized as​“neg­li­gent,”​“care­less,” and in some instances​“reck­less” con­duct by state officials…

U.S. District Court Judge Neil Wake ruled on May 18 that a lethal injec­tion chal­lenge brought by Arizona death row pris­on­ers may move for­ward, pre­vent­ing Arizona from car­ry­ing out any exe­cu­tions before the report­ed expi­ra­tion date of its sup­ply of a key exe­cu­tion drug. Arizona has said that it is unable to replen­ish its sup­ply of mida­zo­lam, an anti-anx­i­e­­ty med­ica­tion that a num­ber of states have used as a seda­tive in mul­ti-drug lethal injection…

One year after the Nebraska leg­is­la­ture vot­ed to repeal the death penal­ty and over­rode a guber­na­to­r­i­al veto of that mea­sure, actions in leg­is­la­tures across the coun­try sug­gest that the state’s efforts sig­nalled a grow­ing move­ment against the death penal­ty by con­ser­v­a­tive leg­is­la­tors and that sup­port for the death penal­ty among Republican leg­is­la­tors is no longer a giv­en. Reporting in The Washington Post, Amber Phillips writes that Republican…

100 years ago, Jesse Washington, a 17-year-old black farm­hand accused of mur­der­ing his white female employ­er was lynched on the steps of the Waco, Texas cour­t­house (pic­tured), moments after Washington’s tri­al end­ed and only sev­en days after the mur­der had occurred. The grue­some lynch­ing took place in front of law enforce­ment per­son­nel and 15,000 spec­ta­tors, none of whom inter­vened to end the vio­lence. Washington, whom reports indicate may…

On May 13, the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny Pfizer announced that it would impose strict dis­tri­b­u­tion con­trols to block states from obtain­ing and using its med­i­cines in exe­cu­tions. In a state­ment, the com­pa­ny said,​“Pfizer makes its prod­ucts to enhance and save the lives of the patients we serve. Consistent with these val­ues, Pfizer strong­ly objects to the use of its prod­ucts as lethal injec­tions for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” With Pfizer’s announce­ment, every major…

More than 12,000 pages of California prison doc­u­ments dis­closed by court order on May 7 reveal prob­lem­at­ic con­duct by state offi­cials and the extra­or­di­nar­i­ly high price tag the state would have paid for lethal injec­tion drugs if it were car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions. The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, which obtained the doc­u­ments after a six-month legal bat­tle, say they show that the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation…

Texas’ Third Court of Appeals heard oral argu­ment on May 11 on the state’s appeal of a tri­al court rul­ing requir­ing it to reveal the iden­ti­ty of its lethal injec­tion drug sup­pli­er in a pair of April 2014 exe­cu­tions. The suit, ini­tial­ly brought on behalf of the two exe­cut­ed pris­on­ers, now impli­cates Texas’ Public Information Act. The pris­on­ers’ attor­neys argued that iden­ti­fy­ing the sup­pli­er of pen­to­bar­bi­tal, the drug used by Texas in executions,…

UPDATE: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit stayed Madison’s exe­cu­tion, order­ing oral argu­ment on his com­pe­ten­cy claim. Previously: Alabama is prepar­ing to exe­cute Vernon Madison (pic­tured) on May 12, as his lawyers con­tin­ue to press their claim that the 65-year-old pris­on­er is incompetent…

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch (pic­tured) ruled on May 9 that Florida’s new death sen­tenc­ing law vio­lates the state’s con­sti­tu­tion. Ruling in the case of Karon Gaiter, who is await­ing a cap­i­tal tri­al, Judge Hirsch said new law’s require­ment that at least 10 jurors agree to the death penal­ty before a defen­dant can be sen­tenced to death vio­lat­ed Florida’s con­sti­tu­tion­al require­ment that all jury ver­dicts must be unan­i­mous.​“For…

Just 27% of Houston-area res­i­dents pre­fer the death penal­ty over life sen­tences for those con­vict­ed of first-degree mur­der, accord­ing to a new report by the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University. Harris County, the largest coun­ty in the Houston met­ro­pol­i­tan area,​“earned its rep­u­ta­tion as the​‘death penal­ty cap­i­tal of America,’” the report says,​“hav­ing exe­cut­ed more peo­ple since 1976 … than any oth­er coun­ty in the nation.” At its…