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News 

Jul 062022

Oklahoma Court Schedules 25 Executions Between August 2022 and December 2024

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has set exe­cu­tion dates for 25 of the state’s 43 death-row pris­on­ers, sched­ul­ing near­ly an exe­cu­tion a month from August 2022 through December 2024. If car­ried out, the exe­cu­tion sched­ule, unprece­dent­ed in the state’s his­to­ry, would put to death 58% of the state’s death row, includ­ing mul­ti­ple pris­on­ers with severe men­tal ill­ness, brain dam­age, and…

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Jul 012022

2022 DPIC Mid-Year Review: Geographic Isolation of Death Penalty Continues Amidst Eight-Year Trend of Minimal Use

At the halfway point of 2022, the United States is on pace to mark the eighth con­sec­u­tive year with few­er than 30 exe­cu­tion and few­er than 50 new death sen­tences. But even as the death penal­ty declines, a few states have attempt­ed to ramp up exe­cu­tions and the United States Supreme Court has con­tin­ued to impede death-row pris­on­ers’ access to the courts and impair judi­cial enforce­ment of defen­dants’ constitutional…

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News 

Jun 302022

DPIC Analysis Finds Prosecutorial Misconduct Implicated in More than 550 Death Penalty Reversals or Exonerations

An analy­sis by the Death Penalty Information Center has dis­cov­ered ram­pant pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct in death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tions. DPICs ongo­ing review of death sen­tences imposed and over­turned after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down exist­ing death penal­ty statutes in 1972 has iden­ti­fied more than 550 pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct rever­sals and exon­er­a­tions in cap­i­tal cas­es (click to enlarge image). That amounts to more than 5.6% of all…

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Jun 272022

Supreme Court Preserves Death-Row Prisoners’ Ability to Challenge Execution Methods in Federal Civil Rights Lawsuits

In a 5 – 4 deci­sion, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the long-stand­ing prac­tice of using fed­er­al civ­il rights suits to chal­lenge state exe­cu­tion meth­ods. The Court ruled in favor of death-row pris­on­er Michael Nance, reject­ing Georgia​’s con­tention that such chal­lenges must be brought in fed­er­al habeas cor­pus pro­ceed­ings when the death-row pris­on­er pro­pos­es an alter­na­tive method not authorized…

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