Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Kenneth Eugene Smith’s November 17 execution was halted after Alabama officials spent an hour trying to set intravenous lines for the lethal injection drugs. Earlier that evening, Smith’s execution had been stayed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, but the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the stay over the dissent of three justices. The setting of IV lines has been an issue in all 3 executions attempted by Alabama this year, including the botched execution of Joe Nathan James and…

The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office attempted to preserve a trial court ruling denying Byron Black’s intellectual disability claim, arguing before the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) on November 8. Black’s attorneys argue that a new law entitles him to relief from his death sentence because of his intellectual disability, and the Davidson County District Attorney’s Office agrees. However, a trial judge denied Black’s claim because it had been previously raised when Tennessee was…

In its third execution of 2022, Arizona executed Murray Hooper for a 1980 crime that was never analyzed using modern forensic methods. In the days preceding his execution, his attorneys continued to request DNA testing and pursued new claims of prosecutorial misconduct based on evidence not revealed until Hooper’s clemency hearing. All challenges to his conviction and death sentence failed. In an investigative report published the day before Hooper’s scheduled execution, Liliana Segura of The…

Two national polls have found that support for capital punishment in the United States remains near half-century lows despite record-high perception that local crime has increased. The 2022 Crime Survey by Gallup, administered between October 3 – 20, 2022 against the backdrop of the Parkland school shooting trial, reported support for capital punishment held steady at 55%, one percentage point above the 50-year low of 54% in 2021. Gallup has measured support for capital punishment at between…

The four executions scheduled for the week of November 17^th highlight current trends in executions and death sentencing and the continued use of the death penalty against vulnerable populations. The prisoners scheduled to be executed by four states have raised a number of issues, including prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective assistance of counsel, discrimination against Black jurors, judicial override of jury decisionmaking, serious mental illness, and brain damage. Stephen Barbee (Texas…

The United States Supreme Court has requested the production of the appellate record of a death penalty case in which the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) refused to grant a new trial to a death-row prisoner despite the agreement of county prosecutors that the use of faulty forensic evidence from a discredited crime lab to convict Areli Escobar (pictured) denied him a fair trial. Travis County prosecutors have taken the rare step of filing a response brief in support of Escobar’s…

The Death Penalty Information Center, supported by the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany, launched a new project on Human Rights and the U.S. Death Penalty on November 4, 2022, with a live-streamed panel discussion at the German embassy in Washington, D.C. The recorded event, which featured noted experts and was attended by scholars, advocates, and members of the world diplomatic corps, was the first in a series of webinars that will spotlight human rights issues in the use and…

Texas executed Tracy Beatty (pictured) on November 9, 2022, after the United States Supreme Court declined to review his challenge to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s refusal to unhandcuff the mentally ill and brain damaged death-row prisoner so that defense mental health experts could conduct mental health testing his lawyers argued was necessary in seeking clemency and in attempting to demonstrate his mental incompetency. The Court, without comment or any noted dissent, denied…

Virginia made history in 2021 when it became the first Southern state to abolish the death penalty. Closing the Slaughterhouse: The Inside Story of Death Penalty Abolition in Virginia tells the story of the commonwealth’s journey from leading executioner to groundbreaking abolitionist state. Written by journalist, author, and anti-death penalty advocate Dale Brumfield, the book explores Virginia’s history surrounding capital punishment, starting with the first execution in 1608 through its…

Oklahoma has once again put off the execution of Richard Glossip, the seventh time his pending execution has been stayed or reprieved. On November 2, 2022, Governor Kevin Stitt issued a new reprieve, staying Glossip’s scheduled December 8, 2022 execution date “to allow time for the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to address pending legal proceedings” seeking to overturn Glossip’s conviction on grounds of innocence. Stitt’s reprieve extended the stay issued as part of a prior August 2022…