Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

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…

In a 4 – 1 vote, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board denied clemen­cy to Richard Fairchild, the third of 25 peo­ple the state sched­uled for exe­cu­tion between August 2022 and December 2024. Fairchild’s attor­neys argued that he was rep­re­sent­ed at tri­al by incom­pe­tent coun­sel who nev­er pre­sent­ed evi­dence of Fairchild’s severe child­hood abuse and of his repeat­ed trau­mat­ic brain injuries. Fairchild’s clemen­cy peti­tion also detailed the…

The Death Penalty Information Center has released a new report on race and the death penal­ty in Oklahoma, plac­ing the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem in his­tor­i­cal con­text. The report doc­u­ments the role that race has played in Oklahoma’s death penal­ty and details the per­va­sive impact that racial dis­crim­i­na­tion con­tin­ues to have in the admin­is­tra­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Deeply Rooted: How Racial History Informs Oklahoma’s…

A non-unan­i­­­mous Florida jury has returned a ver­dict of life with­out parole for Nikolas Cruz, the teen offend­er con­vict­ed of killing 17 peo­ple in the February 14, 2018 shoot­ing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (pic­tured) in Parkland, Florida. The October 13, 2022 ver­dict, in which three jurors vot­ed to spare Cruz’s life, con­clud­ed a six-month sen­tenc­ing tri­al. Florida law, like that of near­ly every death-penalty…

The U.S. Supreme Court heard argu­ment on October 11, 2022 on whether a Texas death-row pris­on­er was time-barred from obtain­ing fed­er­al review of the state’s refusal to grant him DNA test­ing that could prove his inno­cence because he wait­ed for the state appeals process to fin­ish before filing his…

Supreme Court of…

In its land­mark deci­sion in Atkins v. Virginia in 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the use of the death penal­ty against indi­vid­u­als with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty con­sti­tut­ed cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment in vio­la­tion of the Eighth Amendment. Twenty years lat­er, how­ev­er,​“there is not just the risk, but the cer­tain­ty” that states con­tin­ue to sen­tence intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled defen­dants to death, three legal scholars argue,…

Alabama has set a November 17, 2022 exe­cu­tion date for a death-row pris­on­er whose jury vot­ed 11 – 1 to…

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…

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…