Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Ketanji Brown Jackson has been con­firmed as the first African-American woman to serve as a jus­tice of the United States Supreme…

The Arizona Supreme Court has set an exe­cu­tion date of May 11 for Clarence Dixon, a death-row pris­on­er who is blind and has such severe men­tal ill­ness that he was once judged legal­ly insane. Dixon is a mem­ber of the Navajo Nation, which has long opposed the death penal­ty as incon­sis­tent with its culture and…

In a move sharply crit­i­cized by rights advo­cates as a vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al human rights law, Singapore has resumed exe­cu­tions for non-violent drug…

Lawyers for three men on South Carolina​’s death row have asked the state supreme court to defer set­ting exe­cu­tion dates until the courts resolve pend­ing legal chal­lenges to the state’s controversial execution…

Texas’ old­est death-row pris­on­er, Carl Wayne Buntion (pic­tured), has filed a peti­tion with the state Board of Pardons and Parole seek­ing com­mu­ta­tion of his death sen­tence to life with­out parole. Buntion is cur­rent­ly sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on April 21,…

In the March 2022 episode of Discussions With DPIC, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law Senior Lecturer Meredith Rountree speaks with Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham about her study of the types of evi­dence that influ­ence juror deci­­sion-mak­ing at the sen­tenc­ing stage of capital…

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review the case of an Arizona death-row pris­on­er whose sen­tence was upheld by the state’s appel­late courts even though his tri­al judge uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly refused to inform the jury that he would be inel­i­gi­ble for parole if sen­tenced to life in prison. In an order issued March 28, 2021, the Court grant­ed John Montenegro Cruz​’s peti­tion to hear his case, but lim­it­ed its review to the ques­tion of whether the…

After more than a cen­tu­ry of efforts by civ­il rights lead­ers to make lynch­ing a fed­er­al crime, President Joe Biden on March 29, 2022 signed into law historic anti-lynching…

Idaho Governor Brad Little on March 25, 2022, signed into law an exe­cu­tion secre­cy bill that con­ceals from the pub­lic and the courts infor­ma­tion on the pro­duc­ers and sup­pli­ers of drugs used in exe­cu­tions in the…

The Kentucky State Senate has giv­en final leg­isla­tive approval to a bill that would make the Commonwealth the sec­ond U.S. state to bar the exe­cu­tion of peo­ple with serious mental…