Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Washington Governor Jay Inslee announced on February 11 that he would issue a reprieve for any death penalty case that reaches his desk. He said he does not intend to commute the sentences of the nine men on the state’s death row, but his action will ensure that no executions occur while he is governor. In his press conference announcing the decision, Inslee said, “Equal justice under the law is the state’s primary responsibility. And in death penalty cases, I’m not convinced equal justice is…

Questions about the appropriateness of new lethal injection methods have recently stayed executions in Louisiana and Ohio and caused the Florida Supreme Court to order a hearing prior to the next execution there. In Louisiana, Christopher Sepulvado received a 90-day stay to allow a federal court to determine whether the state’s new protocol violates his constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment. He was scheduled to be executed on February 5. The Florida Supreme Court…

A pending federal lawsuit in Missouri asserts that a state law shrouding the makers of lethal injection drugs in secrecy is a form of prior censorship and an interference with the pulic’s right to freedom of speech and freedom of the press under the First Amendment. U.S. District Court Judge Beth Phillips, who has already expressed concern about withholding this information from a death row defendant facing execution, is expected to rule soon on this broader problem. The Georgia Supreme Court…

In a debate held by the Boston Globe, all five Democratic candidates for governor of Massachusetts said they oppose the death penalty for accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Candidate Don Berwick said, “The death penalty has no place in our jurisprudence.” Juliette Kayyem, in an earlier statement on her Facebook page, said, “I have, based on my principles and on my work in death penalty appeals litigation in Alabama, always opposed the death penalty.” The other candidates in…

On February 5, Texas is scheduled to execute Suzanne Basso. Basso would become the 14^th woman executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Basso is confined to a wheel chair and has a history of mental illness. Basso was convicted of murdering a mentally disabled man, ostensibly for insurance money. Others convicted in the offense did not receive the death penalty. A recent article in the Arizona Republic noted an unusually high number of captial prosecutions in…

Prison officials in Texas are reviewing policies currently requiring all death row inmates to be isolated one to a cell for 23 hours a day. Executions in Texas are carried out in Huntsville, and the local chapter of the correctional officers’ union supports changing death-row practices. Chapter president Lance Lowry said, “The correctional officers and taxpayers would benefit from an easing of the current policies. Most death row offenders could be housed two to a cell. Some of them could be…

On January 30 U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced the government would seek the death penalty in the federal prosecution of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. DPIC has a number of resources about the federal death penalty, including a list of federal death row inmates with descriptions of their cases, information about crimes eligible for the federal death penalty, a breakdown of outcomes in federal capital cases, and studies related to such issues as costs and racial…

DPIC recently added a new webpage concerning death sentences in 2013. This resource includes the name, race, and county of sentencing for each of the 80 defendants sentenced to death last year, as well as the names of the leading states and counties. The number of new death sentences handed down was equal to the second lowest number since 1976. By race, 40% of those sentenced to death were white, 39% were black, 19% were Latino, and 2.5% were of other races. California led the country with 24…

The parents of a slain corrections officer in Colorado have asked to testify in opposition to a death sentence for their son’s alleged killer, but prosecutors have challenged their right to intervene. Eric Autobee’s (pictured) parents say that their son “would not have wanted someone killed in his name.” Prosecutors maintain Colorado law only allows victim impact statements to discuss the harm that resulted from the crime. The Autobees, in a court filing quoting Colorado law, argue that a…

Just one week before the scheduled execution of Christopher Sepulvado, Louisiana announced it has been unable to find pentobarbital for its lethal injections and instead may apply a new procedure used only once before in the U.S. If the state cannot obtain pentobarbital, it will employ the two-drug procedure used by Ohio on January16 to execute Dennis McGuire, an execution that resulted in gasping sounds and movements by the inmate over an extended period of time. That procedure involved…