Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

A Pittsburg County, Oklahoma judge has denied a com­pe­ten­cy hear­ing for death-row pris­on­er Benjamin Cole (pic­tured), clear­ing the path for his exe­cu­tion on October 20,…

A study of more than 400 death-eli­gi­ble mur­der cas­es in St. Louis County, Missouri over a 27-year peri­od has found sig­nif­i­cant racial dis­par­i­ties in the county’s admin­is­tra­tion of the death penal­ty based upon the race of the…

California Governor Gavin Newsom (pic­tured) has signed into law a bill that pro­vides death-row pris­on­ers relief from con­vic­tions or death sentences obtained ​“on the basis of race, eth­nic­i­ty, or national…

Black peo­ple are about 7½ times more like­ly to be wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of mur­der in the U.S. than are whites, and about 80% more like­ly to be inno­cent than oth­ers con­vict­ed of mur­der, accord­ing to a new report by the National Registry of Exonerations. The already dis­pro­por­tion­ate risk of wrong­ful con­vic­tion, the Registry found, was even worse if the mur­der vic­tim in a case was…

A Texas dis­trict attor­ney has asked a Dallas judge to over­turn the cap­i­tal mur­der con­vic­tion of Jewish death-row pris­on­er Randy Halprin (pic­tured) because of the vir­u­lent anti-Semitism of the judge who presided over his tri­al and death sen­tence. On September 27, 2022, the sec­ond day of the Jewish high holy day of Rosh Hashanah, Tarrant County District Attorney Sharen Wilson filed a legal mem­o­ran­dum with pro­posed findings of…

An Oklahoma state rep­re­sen­ta­tive has called for an inves­ti­ga­tion into the prac­tices of the Oklahoma County District Attorney​’s office fol­low­ing addi­tion­al rev­e­la­tions that coun­ty pros­e­cu­tors delib­er­ate­ly with­held excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence and man­u­fac­tured false tes­ti­mo­ny to secure a con­vic­tion and death sen­tence against Richard Glossip in his 2004…

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has denied a stay of exe­cu­tion to a Texas man fac­ing an October 5, 2022 exe­cu­tion date that was sched­uled as a result of a death-war­rant motion the local dis­trict attor­ney says was against his office policy and…

A fed­er­al dis­trict court has ordered Alabama state offi­cials to pre­serve evi­dence relat­ed to the state’s failed attempt to exe­cute death-row pris­on­er Alan Miller on September 22, 2022. The botched exe­cu­tion attempt, Alabama’s third since 2018, came after a divid­ed U.S. Supreme Court issued an after-hours exe­cu­­tion-night order set­ting aside with­out opin­ion an injunc­tion that had barred the state from executing Miller ​“by any method oth­er than nitro­gen hypox­ia.” Prison officials then…

Lawyers for a North Carolina cap­i­tal defen­dant have filed a sweep­ing chal­lenge to the method by which death-penal­­ty jurors are empan­eled, argu­ing that the com­bi­na­tion of a process known as ​“death qual­i­fi­ca­tion” and dis­cre­tionary jury strikes pro­duces a jury so racial­ly and sex­u­al­ly unrep­re­sen­ta­tive that it vio­lates a defendant’s right to a fair…

Lawyers for Oklahoma death-row pris­on­er Benjamin Cole have filed a peti­tion with the Oklahoma Board of Pardons and Parole ask­ing the Board to rec­om­mend to Governor Kevin Stitt that Cole’s sen­tence be com­mut­ed to life without…