Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

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…

The process of death qual­i­fi­ca­tion, which excludes peo­ple who oppose the death penal­ty from serv­ing on cap­i­tal juries, is racial­ly dis­crim­i­na­to­ry, civ­il rights advo­cate Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II wrote in an October 10, 2022…

Alan Eugene Miller has asked fed­er­al courts to bar Alabama from set­ting a sec­ond exe­cu­tion date days after the Alabama Attorney General’s office filed a motion in the state’s Supreme Court to expe­dite a new exe­cu­tion war­rant. The state attempt­ed to exe­cute Miller on September 22, 2022, but called off the exe­cu­tion after fail­ing to estab­lish an intra­venous (IV)…

With three jus­tices dis­sent­ing, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case of Texas death-row pris­on­er Andre Thomas, who was sen­tenced to death by jurors who admit­ted to racial bias. In a case involv­ing an inter­ra­cial mur­der and mar­riage, jurors who opposed inter­ra­cial rela­tion­ships were allowed to serve with­out objec­tion by defense coun­sel. These beliefs were ref­er­enced by the pros­e­cu­tion dur­ing clos­ing argu­ment at the sentencing…