Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

UPDATE: CHARLES HOOD’S EXECUTION HAS BEEN STAYED BY THE TEXAS COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS. A Texas state judge has ordered a hear­ing into the accu­sa­tion of an affair between the judge and the pros­e­cu­tor in Charles Hood’s death penal­ty case. With a week to go before Hood’s exe­cu­tion date, the Texas Attorney General also called for a review of the fair­ness of the tri­al. The Attorney General, Greg Abbott, request­ed that the district court ​“thor­ough­ly review the defendant’s claims before the…

A state judge in Arkansas has thrown fur­ther doubt on whether the upcom­ing exe­cu­tion of Frank Williams will be car­ried out on September 9 because the state did not fol­low prop­er pro­ce­dures in adopt­ing its lethal injec­tion pro­to­col. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Timothy Fox barred the Arkansas Department of Correction from using the pro­to­col in its exe­cu­tion of Frank Williams, Jr. because the new exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dures should have been sub­ject to pub­lic comment before…

California pros­e­cu­tors and defense attor­neys recent­ly agreed that Calvin Coleman, Jr., a man sen­tenced to death for mur­der in 1980, is men­tal­ly retard­ed and there­fore exempt from cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. After the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2002 deci­sion that declared exe­cu­tion of men­tal­ly retard­ed indi­vid­u­als uncon­sti­tu­tion­al (Atkins v. Virginia), California mod­i­fied its laws in 2005 to con­form to the rul­ing. Coleman is the first per­son about whom both the pros­e­cu­tion and the…

Executions resumed in the U.S. on May 6 fol­low­ing the Supreme Court’s deci­sion on lethal injec­tions on April 16. There have been 20 exe­cu­tions in 4 months, with 4 months of the year remain­ing. Pertinent sta­tis­tics fol­low:Geography100% in the South 40% in TexasRace of those exe­cut­edWhite 40%Black 45%Hispanic 15%Race of vic­tims in under­ly­ing mur­derWhite 57%Black 32%Hispanic 7%Asian 4%Method of exe­cu­tion19 by lethal injec­tion1 by elec­tro­cu­tonCommutations4 in…

Ronald Carlson want­ed vengeance when his sis­ter was mur­dered in 1983 in Texas. But when he wit­nessed the exe­cu­tion in 1998 of the per­son who com­mit­ted the mur­der he changed his mind. In a recent op-ed in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Carlson said he had no opin­ion on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment before his sister’s death and remem­bers feel­ing hatred and ​“would have killed those respon­si­ble with my own hands if giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty.” But he later discovered…

The defense attor­neys for death row inmate Charles Hood in Texas have filed a civ­il law­suit that would require retired Judge Verla Sue Holland and for­mer dis­trict attor­ney Tom O’Connell, Jr. to tes­ti­fy under oath whether they were hav­ing an inti­mate affair while both were par­tic­i­pat­ing in the cap­i­tal tri­al of Mr. Hood. The under­ly­ing claim is ​“that Judge Holland or Tom O’Connell deprived Charles Hood of his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights by not reveal­ing this roman­tic relationship prior…

A com­pelling nar­ra­tive of the legal and polit­i­cal fight to end the death penal­ty in France has just been released in an English trans­la­tion. Abolition: One Man’s Battle Against the Death Penalty is authored by Robert Badinter, prob­a­bly the sin­gle per­son most respon­si­ble for abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty in France. He begins his sto­ry in 1972 when one of his clients was guil­lotined in a case he felt was unjust. Upon ded­i­cat­ing his career to abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty, he agreed to…

A new radio pro­gram, Execution Watch, is pro­vid­ing live cov­er­age and com­men­tary on days that Texas exe­cutes a death row inmate. Each show will air live start­ing at 6 pm Central Daylight Time at http://​www​.kpft​.org or http://​exe​cu​tion​watch​.org with a wide vari­ety of spe­cial guests and host Ray Hill. The pro­gram­ming is avail­able through the Internet. On its upcom­ing broad­cast, the show will cov­er issues relat­ed to the case of Jeffrey Wood, who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on Aug.