Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Tennessee voters have issued a stunning rebuke to controversial Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich (pictured), ousting her from office after an eleven-year tenure marred by charges of racism and misconduct. In an August 4, 2022 election viewed as a major victory for criminal justice reform advocates, voters ended Weirich’s bid for a new eight-year term as county prosecutor, replacing her with University of Memphis law professor and former county commissioner, Steve Mulroy.

The sister of death-row prisoner Joe Nathan James Jr. has called for an investigation into his botched execution following a statement by an Alabama Department of Correction’s spokesperson that ADOC could not confirm that James was fully conscious when he was executed. James was executed on July 28, 2022 following an initially unexplained three-hour delay during which ADOC execution personnel repeatedly failed to establish an intravenous line for the lethal injection. When reporters were…

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board has recommended clemency for James Coddington (pictured at his clemency hearing), the first of 25 death-row prisoners scheduled to be executed in Oklahoma between August 2022 and December 2024. In a 3 – 2 vote on August 3, 2022, the Board recommended that Coddington’s death sentence be reduced to life without the possibility of parole. Gubernatorial appointee Ed Konieczny, Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals appointee Larry Morris, and Oklahoma Supreme Court…

As the trial challenging South Carolina’s execution methods began on August 1, 2022, a review of the state’s death penalty by the Greenville News revealed a pattern of discrimination, geographic arbitrariness, and high error rates in the implementation of the punishment. In a two-part examination, reporter Kathryn Casteel analyzed racial and county demographics on death row, reversal rates in capital cases, and the timing of death sentences to provide context for the state’s efforts to…

Three groups of fair justice advocates have filed friend-of-the-court briefs asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review and overturn a Texas appeals court ruling that denied a new trial to a death-row prisoner who prosecutors and the trial court agree was convicted based on false DNA testimony by a disgraced police crime lab. On July 26, 2022, The Innocence Network and The Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences, Inc. filed a joint amicus brief on behalf of Areli Escobar asking the justices to…

The innocence case of Alabama death-row prisoner Toforest Johnson (pictured, center) has drawn substantial support from former judges, jurors, prosecutors, and state bar presidents, but disinterest by current Alabama officials has left Johnson languishing on death row. So argues journalist Radley Balko in his Washington Post column on July 28, 2022. Balko’s column revisits Johnson’s case and details the evidence that strongly points towards his innocence. Advocating for a new trial, Balko…

As Massachusetts formally exonerated the last person condemned for witchcraft in the colony, efforts are under way to clear the names of the 46 people wrongfully charged with witchcraft in neighboring Connecticut during the 17^th century Puritan witch hunts. 329 years after she was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death, the Massachusetts state senate amended the state’s budget to include a provision to exonerate Elizabeth Johnson Jr., the last of the people convicted during the Salem…

Alabama put Joe Nathan James, Jr. to death on July 28, 2022 against the wishes of his victim’s family in an execution marred by an hours-long failure to set a lethal-injection intravenous line and an embarrassing dress-code controversy in which a corrections official told a female reporter she would not be able to witness the execution because her skirt was too short and she was wearing open-toed shoes and subjected another female reporter to a clothing inspection. The daughters and brother of…

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has overturned a South Carolina death-row prisoner’s death sentence after finding that the sentencing judge in his case had ignored uncontested evidence of the defendant’s mental illness and history of severe childhood abuse and neglect. In a 2 – 1 ruling on July 26, 2022, a panel of the Fourth Circuit vacated the death sentence imposed on Quincy Allen by Richland County Circuit Court Judge G. Thomas Cooper in March 2005 for the murders…

State and federal courts have overturned three California death sentences in a span of two weeks from late June to mid-July 2022. Death-row prisoners Richard Clark, Michael Bramit, and Andrew Lancaster were all granted relief on claims related to defense counsel’s inadequate performance or jury-related issues. Clark and Bramit will receive new penalty-phase trials. Andrew Lancaster was sentenced to death in Los Angeles County in 1998. After accepting a stipulation between Lancaster’s counsel…