Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Highlighting the recent abolition of the death penalty in Nebraska and concerns about wrongful convictions, National Urban League President Marc H. Morial (pictured) called for an end to executions. In an op-ed for The Philadelphia Tribune, Morial cited declining public support for the death penalty: “56 percent of Americans support the death penalty, this from a high of almost 80 percent in the mid-90s,” he said. He also emphasized the growing conservative opposition to the death penalty…

A federal judge in Louisiana has delayed five executions until at least July 2016 as state officials struggle to determine how to conduct executions using lethal injection. Christopher Sepulvado, a death row inmate whose execution has been rescheduled several times over the last two years, is challenging the constitutionality of Louisiana’s execution method. The Department of Corrections requested that a hearing related to Sepulvado’s challenge be put on hold because, “it would be a waste of…

Through the lens of a 1927 murder and the ensuing trials of three suspects, An Evil Day in Georgia examines the death penalty system in Prohibition-era Georgia. James Hugh Moss, a black man, and Clifford Thompson, a white man, both from Tennessee, were accused of the murder of store owner Coleman Osborn in rural north Georgia. Thought to be involved in the illegal interstate trade of alcohol, they were tried, convicted, and sentenced to death on circumstantial evidence within a month of the…

In a dissenting opinion in Glossip v. Gross, Justice Stephen Breyer (pictured), joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, provided a sweeping analysis of why he believes the death penalty in the United States may be unconstitutional and called for a “full briefing” on “whether the death penalty violates the Constitution.” Justice Breyer wrote that “Nearly 40 years ago, this Court upheld the death penalty under statutes that, in the Court’s view, contained safeguards sufficient to ensure that the…

Death row in Texas has shrunk from 460 men and women at its peak in 1999 to 260 today. The main reason for that drop, according to an article in The Texas Tribune, is the dramatic decline in death sentences imposed in the state. In 1999 alone, Texas sentenced 48 people to death. But in the first 6 months of 2015, no death sentences have been imposed in Texas. This development is unprecedented, according to the Texas Defender Service (TDS). “This is the longest we’ve gone in a calendar year in…

Michelle Byrom (pictured, seated) was released from prison in Mississippi on June 26 after spending 16 years behind bars, 14 of them on death row, for the murder of her husband. Byrom maintains her innocence for the crime, but agreed to an Alford plea — which means that she pleaded no contest to the charges against her — in exchange for her release. In 2014, the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed Byrom’s conviction and death sentence and ordered a new trial, citing numerous problems in her…

Glenn Ford, who was exonerated last year after spending almost 30 years on Louisiana’s death row, died of lung cancer on June 29 at the age of 65. At the time of his release, Ford was the nation’s longest-serving death row exoneree. Just hours after his death, Ford’s case was cited in the dissenting opinion of Justice Breyer in Glossip v. Gross, as providing “striking” evidence “that the death penalty has been wrongly imposed.” Justice Breyer mentioned innocence, prosecutorial wrongdoing, the…

On June 29, the U.S. Supreme Court held (5 – 4) in Glossip v. Gross that Oklahoma inmates “failed to establish a likelihood of success on the merits of their claim that the use of midazolam violates the Eighth Amendment.” Three inmates on Oklahoma’s death row had challenged the state’s use of midazolam as the first drug in a three-drug protocol, saying that it “fails to render a person insensate to pain.” In a narrow decision written by Justice Samuel Alito, the Court deferred to a District…

Lester Bower was executed in Texas on June 3 despite maintaining his innocence throughout the 30 years he spent on death row. The evidence of Bower’s innocence included testimony from a woman who said that her boyfriend and three of his friends — not Bower — had committed the murders for which Bower was executed. The witness came forward in 1989, after reading that Bower had been sentenced to death for the crime her boyfriend had confessed to committing six years earlier. In 2012, a judge…

In an interview with The Marshall Project, Bryan Stevenson (pictured), director of the Equal Justice Initiative and author of Just Mercy, discussed the role the history of slavery, lynchings, and racial terrorism in the South played in the racially-motivated killings of nine black people in an historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina. In the interview, Stevenson described the historical use of the death penalty as a tool to reinforce a racially discriminatory social order. This, he…