Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

According to a September 14, 2023, arti­cle from The Intercept, four med­ical sup­ply man­u­fac­tur­ers are refus­ing to sell their equip­ment for use in lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions. This lim­i­ta­tion may fur­ther ham­per the abil­i­ty of states to car­ry out exe­cu­tions, as a mul­ti­tude of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies have already placed restric­tions on sell­ing their drugs to depart­ments of cor­rec­tion. Joining these com­pa­nies are Baxter International Inc., B. Braun Medical Inc., Fresenius Kabi, and Johnson &…

On September 12, 2023, East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore filed a request for injunc­tive relief, ask­ing the 19^th Judicial District Court to vacate hear­ings sched­uled for three East Baton Rouge Parish pris­on­ers who have request­ed clemen­cy. In June 2023, 51 death-sen­­tenced indi­vid­u­als filed clemen­cy appli­ca­tions with the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Committee on Parole, request­ing a com­mu­ta­tion of their death sen­tences to life with­out parole. Five addi­tion­al applications from…

In most states, a death sen­tence may only be imposed by a jury in unan­i­mous agree­ment. But in two recent cas­es, defen­dants faced the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a death sen­tence despite the objections of…

On September 6, 2023, a bipar­ti­san group of Ohio state rep­re­sen­ta­tives rein­tro­duced a bill that would abol­ish the death penal­ty and replace the pun­ish­ment with life in prison with­out parole. Legislators in Ohio have debat­ed the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for near­ly a decade, but this renewed effort comes after state sen­a­tors intro­duced Senate Bill 101 ear­li­er in the year, which would also abol­ish the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Among the pri­ma­ry spon­sors of these bills is Representative Jean…

In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, nov­el­ist John Grisham recounts the flawed sci­ence that led to the con­vic­tion of Robert Roberson (pic­tured, with his daugh­ter Nikki) and the inad­e­quate legal process that has main­tained that con­vic­tion. Mr. Roberson was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the 2002 death of his 2‑year-old daugh­ter Nikki. His con­vic­tion relied on a theory of ​“shak­en baby syn­drome” that has since been dis­cred­it­ed. After a hear­ing ordered by the Texas Court of Criminal…

On September 5, 2023, Jesse Johnson (pic­tured) was released from Marion County Jail in Oregon when pros­e­cu­tors for­mal­ly declined to retry him for the 1998 mur­der of Harriet Thompson. Mr. Johnson was con­vict­ed of Ms. Thompson’s mur­der in 2004 and sen­tenced to death. In ask­ing the Marion County Circuit Court to dis­miss the case against Mr. Johnson, the coun­ty District Attorney’s office stated that ​“based upon the amount of time that has passed and the unavail­abil­i­ty of crit­i­cal evi­dence in this…

Family mem­bers of some of the vic­tims of 9/​11 have asked the Biden Administration to aban­don cur­rent plea nego­ti­a­tions with Guantánamo detainees that would remove the pos­si­bil­i­ty of death sen­tences for the men accused of plan­ning the 9/​11 ter­ror attacks. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his four co-defen­­dants have been held for more than twen­ty years, first at CIA black sites where they were subject to ​“enhanced inter­ro­ga­tion tech­niques” and then at Guantánamo, but none has pro­ceed­ed to tri­al. The…

In the August 2023 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Anne Holsinger, Managing Director of DPIC, speaks with Dr. Roya Boroumand (pic­tured), Executive Director of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran. A spe­cial­ist in Iran’s post-World War 2 his­to­ry, Dr. Boroumand pro­vides his­tor­i­cal con­text for ongo­ing events and dis­cuss­es the cur­rent increase in…

On August 30, 2023, the Tennessee Criminal Court of Appeals affirmed a low­er court’s rul­ing that for­mer­ly death-sen­­tenced pris­on­er Pervis Payne can serve his two life sen­tences con­cur­rent­ly, mak­ing him eli­gi­ble to apply for parole in less than four years. Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan resen­tenced Mr. Payne in 2022 to two life sen­tences with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole after pros­e­cu­tors con­ced­ed that they could not dis­prove Mr. Payne’s claim that he is intellectually disabled…

Former Denver Chief Deputy District Attorney Craig Silverman recent­ly wrote about why he changed his mind about sup­port­ing the death penal­ty and expressed new fears regard­ing its future use. His op-ed was pub­lished on August 29, 2023 in the Colorado Sun. Mr. Silverman writes that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was a promi­nent issue in his cam­paign for Denver District Attorney, and he him­self pros­e­cut­ed death penal­ty cas­es and pub­licly sup­port­ed its use. But he writes that he now has ​“new­found support…