Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

On April 23 the U.S. Supreme Court rein­stat­ed the death sen­tence of Kentucky inmate Robert Woodall, revers­ing an ear­li­er rul­ing by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. At Woodall’s tri­al, his attor­ney asked the judge to instruct the jury not to draw any neg­a­tive infer­ence from the fact that Woodall had not tes­ti­fied in the sen­tenc­ing phase. The judge refused to give the instruc­tion. The 6^th Circuit held that the fail­ure to instruct the jury was a…

In a peti­tion to the Ohio Parole Board, Cuyahoga County pros­e­cu­tor Tim McGinty (pic­tured) request­ed the death sen­tence of Arthur Tyler be reduced to life in prison with­out parole. McGinty said, ​“At the time of Tyler’s tri­al, Ohio law did not allow for the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a sen­tence of life with­out parole for an aggra­vat­ed mur­der conviction.…In light of the lim­it­ed sen­tenc­ing options, the absence of the option of a sentence…

UPDATE: On April 23, the Oklahoma Supreme Court held that the inmates fac­ing exe­cu­tion do not have a right to be informed of the source of the drugs that will be used in their exe­cu­tions. The Court lift­ed the stays of exe­cu­tion, which means they could occur on April 29. ‑Earlier: On April 21, the Oklahoma Supreme Court indef­i­nite­ly stayed the exe­cu­tions of Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner so it could resolve the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of a state…

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles will soon con­sid­er the clemen­cy peti­tion of Robert Holsey describ­ing a near com­plete fail­ure in the judi­cial process that sent him to death row in 1997. As Marc Bookman described in the lat­est edi­tion of Mother Jones, Holsey was assigned a lawyer, Andy Prince, who con­sumed a quart of vod­ka every night of the tri­al. While prepar­ing Holsey’s case, he was arrest­ed in an inci­dent after point­ing a gun at a black…

UPDATE: (4/​21). The Oklahoma Supreme Court (5 – 4) has stayed the exe­cu­tions of Lockett and Warner. Earlier:In a 3 – 2 deci­sion on April 18, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) said it could not grant a stay of exe­cu­tion to two death row inmates fac­ing immi­nent exe­cu­tion because they had not filed a prop­er motion. Earlier, the Oklahoma Supreme Court said the OCCA should be the court to grant a stay, espe­cial­ly since there were unset­tled questions about…

On April 17, the New Hampshire Senate vot­ed 12 – 12 on a bill to repeal the death penal­ty. The Senate then vot­ed to table the bill, mean­ing it could be brought up for recon­sid­er­a­tion lat­er in the leg­isla­tive ses­sion. New Hampshire has not had an exe­cu­tion since 1939 and has only 1 per­son on death row, whose sta­tus would not have been affect­ed by the bill. The bill had over­whelm­ing­ly passed the House ear­li­er, and Gov. Maggie Hassan indi­cat­ed she would have…

A new study pub­lished by Professors Jon Gould (l.) of American University and Richard Leo of the University of San Francisco, along with oth­er researchers, exam­ined fac­tors that have con­tributed to wrong­ful con­vic­tions in crim­i­nal cas­es. The study com­pared cas­es in which ​“guilty” defen­dants were even­tu­al­ly exon­er­at­ed to those in which defen­dants were not con­vict­ed in the first place. The researchers found a num­ber of vari­ables that sep­a­rat­ed wrong­ful con­vic­tions from so-called ​“near miss­es,”…

In advance of a New Hampshire Senate vote expect­ed on April 17, the Boston Globe pub­lished an edi­to­r­i­al call­ing on their neigh­bor­ing state’s leg­is­la­tors to sup­port repeal of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The edi­to­r­i­al high­light­ed the bipar­ti­san sup­port for abo­li­tion in the New Hampshire House, and Gov. Maggie Hassan’s pledge to sign the repeal bill if it pass­es the Senate. Among their rea­sons for endors­ing the mea­sure, the Globe said,…

DPIC recent­ly pub­lished a new page that presents exe­cu­tion data for each state and each year since 1976. This allows users to more eas­i­ly see exe­cu­tion trends in states over time. We have also recent­ly post­ed updat­ed state data from ​“Death Row, USA.” As of October 1, 2013, there were 3,088 inmates on death row, con­tin­u­ing the decline in death row pop­u­la­tion since 2000. As devel­op­ments sur­round­ing lethal injec­tion con­tin­ue to emerge, users can find current…

In a recent op-ed in the New York Times, attor­neys Megan McCracken and Jennifer Moreno argued that the veil of secre­cy that many states have placed over their exe­cu­tion process vio­lates defen­dants’ con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and ​“deprives the pub­lic of informed debate.” The authors pro­vid­ed numer­ous exam­ples where inmates exe­cut­ed with drugs from com­pound­ing phar­ma­cies or with nov­el mix­es of new drugs exhib­it­ed signs of con­scious­ness and suf­fer­ing. However, inmates whose…