Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

A report released by Amnesty International in July looks at recent devel­op­ments in the lethal injec­tion con­tro­ver­sy in the U.S. and pro­vides an overview of the death penal­ty since it was rein­stat­ed in 1976 in Gregg v. Georgia. Amnesty’s report, entitled ​“An Embarrassment of Hitches: Reflections on the Death Penalty, 35 Years After Gregg v. Georgia, As States Scramble for Lethal Injection Drugs,” begins with a dis­cus­sion of a law­suit filed by…

On July 29, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott ruled that the state’s Forensic Science Commission (FSC) does not have author­i­ty to review evi­dence regard­ing the pos­si­ble inno­cence of Cameron Todd Willingham (pic­tured), who was exe­cut­ed in 2004. Willingham was con­vict­ed of set­ting the fire that killed his three chil­dren, but inves­tig­tions by promi­nent foren­sic sci­en­tists have dis­cred­it­ed the evi­dence of arson pre­sent­ed at tri­al. Abbott said evi­dence that was…

On July 28, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed the sched­uled August 18 exe­cu­tion of Larry Swearingen (pic­tured) in order to con­sid­er new evi­dence that might prove his inno­cence. Swearingen was con­vict­ed of the 1998 mur­der of Melissa Trotter, whose body was found in the Sam Houston National Forest. Trotter was last seen alive with Swearingen. Forensic sci­en­tists who exam­ined the evi­dence from Trotter’s body have said that she could not have been in the…

The Death Penalty Information Center is pleased to offer a new and more com­pre­hen­sive ver­sion of our Execution Database. The new data­base includes infor­ma­tion on the coun­ty where the crime was com­mit­ted and on the gen­der of vic­tim, in addi­tion to the infor­ma­tion avail­able in our pre­vi­ous data­base. The data­base includes such cat­e­gories as Race of Defendant and Victim, Foreign Nationals, Method of Execution, and Age at…

O.H. Eaton Jr. (pic­tured), who served as a judge for many years in Florida, recent­ly wrote an op-ed in the Birmingham News call­ing for an end to Alabama​’s law that allows judges to over­ride juries’ sen­tenc­ing rec­om­men­da­tions in death penal­ty cas­es. Eaton, who presided over numer­ous cap­i­tal cas­es dur­ing his 24 years on the bench, said that his expe­ri­ence con­vinced him that the prac­tive of judi­cial over­ride is unfair. Citing a report…

On July 25, the Florida Supreme Court (4 – 3) stayed the August 2 exe­cu­tion of Manuel Valle to allow a low­er court to con­sid­er a chal­lenge to a new lethal injec­tion drug. Last month, Florida sub­sti­tut­ed pen­to­bar­bi­tal for sodi­um thiopen­tal as the first drug in its three-drug pro­to­col for exe­cu­tions. Florida and many oth­er states were forced to seek alter­na­tives to sodi­um thiopen­tal when the drug’s sole U.S. man­u­fac­tur­er decid­ed to stop its pro­duc­tion. Valle’s…

Marcus Robinson will be the first North Carolina death row inmate to have a sen­tenc­ing chal­lenge heard in court based on the state’s 2009 Racial Justice Act. According to the act, a death row inmate who can estab­lish through sta­tis­ti­cal stud­ies that his sen­tence was racial­ly dis­crim­i­na­to­ry can seek to have it com­mut­ed to life in prison. Robinson’s lawyers plan to argue that he received a death sen­tence part­ly because he is black and his vic­tim was white They plan to cite several…

The cap­i­tal arraign­ment on July 20 of Army Major Nidal Hasan for the mur­der of 13 peo­ple at Fort Hood, Texas, in November 2009 has brought atten­tion to the death penal­ty in the United States Military. There are cur­rent­ly six inmates on the mil­i­tary death row, which is locat­ed in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. In the last two years, four men have been removed from the mil­i­tary death row after their sen­tences were reduced to life. The Uniform Code of Military Justice allows the…

Georgia Superior Court Judge Bensonetta Tipton Lane has ordered that the Department of Corrections (DOC) video­tape the upcom­ing exe­cu­tion of Andrew Grant DeYoung (pic­tured). The exe­cu­tion was first sched­uled for July 20, but after the Georgia Supreme Court upheld Judge Lane’s order, the DOC decid­ed to move DeYoung’s exe­cu­tion to July 21. Videotaping of exe­cu­tions is very rare, with the last known instance in 1992 in California, also as a result of a court…