Entries by Death Penalty Information Center


News 

Mar 032025

Alabama Governor Grants Clemency to Robin Rocky’ Myers, Sparing Him from Execution

On February 28, 2025, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey com­mut­ed the death sen­tence of Robin​‘Rocky’ Dion Myers to Life Without Parole (LWOP). Myers was con­vict­ed in the 1991 mur­der of Ludie Mae Tucker in Decatur, Alabama. His jury rec­om­mend­ed that he be sen­tenced to LWOP, but the judge in his case over­rode the jury’s rec­om­men­da­tion and hand­ed down a death sen­tence. The prac­tice of judi­cial over­ride was abol­ished in Alabama in 2017. In her state­ment, Gov. Ivey repeated her…

Read More

News 

Feb 272025

New Podcast: The Past, Present, and Future of the California Racial Justice Act

In the February 2025 episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with three experts on California’s Racial Justice Act (RJA). Natasha Minsker, an attor­ney and con­sul­tant, for­mer­ly of the ACLU, speaks on the his­to­ry of the RJA and the impe­tus for its pas­sage. Genevie Gold, research and writ­ing fel­low at the Office of the State Public Defender (OSPD), describes the process that an RJA claim fol­lows through the legal sys­tem, and…

Read More

News 

Feb 242025

Article of Interest: Cato Institute Fellow Critiques Medical Ethics Double Standard Around Executions

In a February blog post, Cato Institute Senior Fellow Jeffrey A. Singer crit­i­cizes the use of med­ical­ized lethal injec­tion, high­light­ing the dou­ble stan­dard under which pro­ce­dures that med­ical pro­fes­sion­als are eth­i­cal­ly barred from car­ry­ing out are not only allowed, but required, of law enforce­ment per­son­nel.​“A doc­tor who inten­tion­al­ly per­forms cru­el and med­ical­ly unjus­ti­fi­able pro­ce­dures that cause pain and suf­fer­ing could face crim­i­nal charges. If…

Read More

News 

Feb 042025

Florida Legislature Passes Unconstitutional Bill that Mandates the Death Penalty for Unauthorized Aliens”

On January 28, 2025, the Florida Legislature passed an immi­gra­tion bill that includes a pro­vi­sion man­dat­ing the auto­mat­ic impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty for​“unau­tho­rized aliens” con­vict­ed of a cap­i­tal offense, despite long­stand­ing U.S. prece­dent and inter­na­tion­al law pro­hibit­ing manda­to­ry death sen­tences. The bill was intro­duced dur­ing a short spe­cial leg­isla­tive ses­sion called by Governor Ron DeSantis (pic­tured), leav­ing lit­tle to no time for public…

Read More

News 

Jan 302025

Arizona’s Hourly Compensation for Post-Conviction Capital Counsel Found Inadequate for Certification by Outgoing Attorney General Merrick Garland

In one of his final acts before leav­ing office, out­go­ing Attorney General Merrick Garland denied a long­stand­ing request by Arizona state offi­cials for the state to be​“cer­ti­fied” so it could take advan­tage of cer­tain pro­ce­dur­al ben­e­fits in fed­er­al habeas review of cap­i­tal cas­es. These changes are avail­able only when a state sat­is­fies cer­tain require­ments, and ben­e­fit state actors by impos­ing greater restric­tions on a prisoner’s abil­i­ty to raise claims and by…

Read More

News 

Jan 292025

12:01: The Death Penalty in Context — The Death Penalty in 2024

In this month’s episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with DPI Communications Associate Hayley Bedard, about The Death Penalty in 2024, which high­lights trends and events relat­ed to the death penal­ty. 2024 marked the tenth con­sec­u­tive year dur­ing which few­er than 30 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed (25) and few­er than 50 peo­ple were sen­tenced to death (26), while high pro­file cas­es of death-sen­­­tenced people attracted…

Read More