Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

“Speaking as a busi­ness leader, a proud, life­time Tennessean and a human being, it’s time for the state to abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment,” wrote Mac Bartine, CEO of Knoxville-based tech com­pa­ny Smartria, in an op-ed for Knox News. Bartine described the find­ings of the 2022 inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion into Tennessee’s exe­cu­tion prac­tices, which found that the state repeat­ed­ly failed to adhere to its own protocol. ​“The report proved what we have known for years – that the death penalty has…

John Balentine (pic­tured) is a Texas death-row pris­on­er who was sen­tenced to death in 1999 for a triple mur­der. He had been sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on February 8, 2023, but a tem­po­rary reprieve has been grant­ed. His appel­late attor­neys have pre­sent­ed numer­ous instances of racial bias that may have affect­ed the pro­ceed­ings in his…

At the urg­ing of Governor Ron DeSantis, bills have been intro­duced in the Florida House and Senate that would allow death sen­tences even when the jury can­not come to a unan­i­mous ver­dict on the prop­er penal­ty. The pro­posed leg­is­la­tion would also per­mit a pre­sid­ing judge to over­ride a jury’s rec­om­men­da­tion of life and impose a death sen­tence. Death sen­tences would be allowed if at least eight jurors agreed, cre­at­ing the low­est thresh­old in the nation for the impo­si­tion of a death sen­tence. Only…

Leonard Taylor (pic­tured) is a Missouri death-row pris­on­er who was con­vict­ed in 2008 of a quadru­ple mur­der that occurred in St. Louis in December 2004. His exe­cu­tion is sched­uled for February 7, 2023. Taylor has con­sis­tent­ly main­tained his inno­cence. Although Taylor’s attor­neys have dis­cov­ered new evi­dence to sub­stan­ti­ate his claim, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell announced that he would not ask a judge to hold an evi­den­tiary hear­ing in the…

The California Supreme Court grant­ed Nvwtohiyada Idehesdi Sequoyah (tried as and referred to in court doc­u­ments as Billy Ray Waldon) a new tri­al on January 23, 2023 after over­turn­ing his 1992 death sen­tence and con­vic­tion. Sequoyah was per­mit­ted to rep­re­sent him­self at tri­al despite strong evi­dence that he was incom­pe­tent to do so. The new rul­ing deter­mined that the tri­al court had failed to pro­tect a mentally ill…

Sayfullo Saipov (pic­tured) was found guilty in fed­er­al court on January 26, 2023 of killing eight peo­ple on a New York City bike path in 2017 by dri­ving a truck into a crowd of peo­ple. He will now like­ly be the first per­son to face a fed­er­al cap­i­tal penal­ty hear­ing dur­ing President Biden’s admin­is­tra­tion. On February 6, 2023, a jury in Manhattan will begin hear­ing evi­dence to deter­mine whether Saipov will be sen­tenced to death or life with­out parole. The jury must vote unan­i­mous­ly for a death…

On January 21, 2023, Texas death row pris­on­er Terence Andrus hanged him­self at the age of 34, a lit­tle more than 6 months after the U.S. Supreme Court denied review of his case for a sec­ond time. His lawyer, Gretchen Sween, told the Los Angeles Times that ​“he’d been careen­ing toward the abyss,” since their decision. ​“He was…

Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham will be leav­ing DPIC after eight years at its helm. He will be replaced on inter­im basis by for­mer Executive Director Richard…

Kevin Cooper (pic­tured) is a death-row pris­on­er in California who was con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing four peo­ple in 1985. He has main­tained his inno­cence of the offense. On January 13, 2023, a spe­cial coun­sel appoint­ed by Governor Gavin Newsom to con­duct an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion of Cooper’s case released a report dis­miss­ing his claims of inno­cence, stating, ​“The evi­dence of Cooper’s guilt is extensive and…

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has appoint­ed a spe­cial coun­sel to conduct a ​‘thor­ough review’ of the case of death-row pris­on­er Richard Glossip, who has faced nine exe­cu­tion dates despite strong evi­dence that he is inno­cent of the 1997 alleged mur­der-for-hire of an Oklahoma City motel own­er. In a news release issued January 26, 2023, two days after the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals resched­uled Glossip’s execution from…