Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

A fed­er­al dis­trict court in Texas has heard evi­dence on, and now must decide, whether a severe­ly men­tal­ly ill man is com­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed. On October 24, 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas began pre­sid­ing over the com­pe­ten­cy hear­ing of Scott Panetti (pic­tured), whose case estab­lished the con­sti­tu­tion­al stan­dard for com­pe­ten­cy to be exe­cut­ed, to deter­mine whether he has a ratio­nal under­stand­ing of his death sen­tence and the…

In 1994, the United States Supreme Court held in Simmons v. South Carolina that when the pros­e­cu­tion makes future dan­ger­ous­ness an issue in a cap­i­tal case, a defen­dant has a due process right to inform jurors that he will not be parole eli­gi­ble if he is not sen­tenced to death. For more than a decade, Arizona courts refused to apply that prece­dent. Then, in 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court sum­mar­i­ly struck down that prac­tice in Lynch v. Arizona,…

In the October 2022 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Death Penalty Information Center Deputy Director Ngozi Ndulue and Data Storyteller Tiana Herring dis­cuss DPIC​’s 2022 report Deeply Rooted: How Racial History Informs Oklahoma’s Death Penalty. The report looks at the racial his­to­ry, present, and future of Oklahoma’s death penal­ty. Ndulue and Herring explore Oklahoma’s unique his­to­ry, the key find­ings of the report, its rela­tion­ship to DPIC​’s ear­li­er work, and lessons from…

In what the Tampa Bay Times described as ​“an epic turn­around” in a 46-year-old cap­i­tal case, a Florida tri­al judge is poised to order DNA test­ing of evi­dence death-row pris­on­er Tommy Zeigler has long assert­ed will prove him inno­cent of the quadru­ple mur­der for which he was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in…

Two-thirds of Black women and more than half of Black men have been struck from jury ser­vice in Duval County death penal­ty cas­es, more than dou­ble the rate at which white prospec­tive jurors are exclud­ed, a study of cap­i­tal jury selec­tion in the Florida county has…

With a fed­er­al court rul­ing on his inno­cence claims con­sid­ered immi­nent, Oprah Winfrey has des­ig­nat­ed the auto­bi­og­ra­phy of California death-row pris­on­er Jarvis Jay Masters, That Bird Has Wings, as the September 2022 selec­tion for the Oprah Winfrey Book Club. Masters, who has con­vert­ed to Buddhism and become a tal­ent­ed author and pod­cast host in the years since his con­tro­ver­sial con­vic­tion and death sen­tence for the 1985 murder of…

On October 19^th, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled against Oklahoma death-row pris­on­ers who had argued that they should be allowed to have their attor­ney present through­out their exe­cu­tion so that coun­sel could inter­vene and file for emer­gency relief if a prob­lem arose during the…

When California​’s Racial Justice Act becomes applic­a­ble to the cas­es of pris­on­ers on the state’s death row begin­ning in January 2023, it will vast­ly reshape the legal land­scape of the state’s death penal­ty, legal reform advocates…

A fed­er­al prison war­den has denied an Oklahoma District Attorney’s request to trans­fer John Fitzgerald Hanson (pic­tured) to Oklahoma​’s cus­tody to be exe­cut­ed, stat­ing that the transfer ​“is not in the public’s best inter­est.” Hanson is incar­cer­at­ed at a fed­er­al prison in…

Two lead­ing United Nations human rights experts have con­demned cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as incom­pat­i­ble with inter­na­tion­al legal require­ments, say­ing the death penalty is ​“almost impos­si­ble” to admin­is­ter while respect­ing the human rights of the…