Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

In the sec­ond and third videos of The New York Times’ three-part series, ​“The Fallibility of Justice,” Brett Malone, whose mother’s killer remains on Louisiana death row, and Texas death-sen­­tenced pris­on­er Charles Don Flores pro­vide their per­spec­tives on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The New York Times has con­sis­tent­ly called for abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty, describ­ing it as ​“full of bias and error, moral­ly abhor­rent, [and] futile in deterring crime.”…

In a July pod­cast episode from Deeper Dive with Dara Kam, for­mer Florida Governor Jeb Bush (pic­tured) spoke about his beliefs on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and his regrets about not hav­ing enough time to reform Florida’s death penal­ty process. Gov. Bush, who over­saw 21 exe­cu­tions dur­ing his eight years in office, said that ​“it’s one of those things that would prob­a­bly be unpop­u­lar to do, but fig­ur­ing out a way to reform the sys­tem giv­en the exist­ing laws that we have now, I think would be…

In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPIC, Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Leah Roemer, DPIC​’s Legal Fellow and a pri­ma­ry author of our recent report, Lethal Election: How the U.S. Electoral Process Increases the Arbitrariness of the Death Penalty. Leah grad­u­at­ed from Berkeley Law in 2023, where she par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Death Penalty Clinic and earned a cer­tifi­cate in Public Interest and Social Justice. Leah dis­cuss­es how some judges, pros­e­cu­tors, and…

In hon­or of Disability Pride Month (July), the Death Penalty Information Center post­ed a week­ly fea­ture high­light­ing issues relat­ed to the death penal­ty and dis­abil­i­ty and pro­files of indi­vid­u­als who have played key roles in chang­ing the laws to pro­tect pris­on­ers with dis­abil­i­ties. This final post focus­es on the role of mitigation…

UPDATE: On August 2^nd, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin revoked the July 31, 2024 plea agree­ment reached between mil­i­tary com­mis­sions pros­e­cu­tors and defense coun­sel for three of the 9/​11 defen­dants being held at Guantanamo. In a two-para­­graph memo, Secretary Austin revoked the author­i­ty of Susan Escallier, the head of the Military Commissions Convening Authority, to enter into the plea agree­ments and reserved that author­i­ty for him­self. This unex­pect­ed development negates…

Brian Wharton, who was the lead detec­tive in Palestine, Texas at the time of Robert Roberson’s con­vic­tion for the death of his two-year-old daugh­ter Nikki, now believes Mr. Roberson is inno­cent and sup­ports abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty. Mr. Wharton said in a video for The New York Times that there is ​“unas­sail­able doubt” that Mr. Roberson is…

With Utah prepar­ing for its first exe­cu­tion in 14 years, one of the state’s lead­ing news­pa­pers has issued a call not only to spare Taberon Honie, the pris­on­er set for exe­cu­tion on August 8, 2024, but to end the prac­tice of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment alto­geth­er. In a July 25 edi­to­r­i­al, the Salt Lake Tribune high­lights Mr. Honie’s abu­sive upbring­ing and his sin­cere remorse for the crime, say­ing his case for clemency ​“is strong.” The day after the edi­to­r­i­al was pub­lished, the Utah Board of Pardons and…

As Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price seeks to rem­e­dy her office’s his­to­ry of dis­crim­i­na­to­ry jury selec­tion, an study pub­lished in the 2024 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies by Catherine M. Grosso, Jeffrey Fagan, and Michael Laurence finds empir­i­cal evi­dence that the race of the defen­dant and the race of the vic­tim affect the like­li­hood of a death sen­tence being imposed in…

This July, in hon­or of Disability Pride Month, the Death Penalty Information Center is post­ing a week­ly fea­ture high­light­ing issues relat­ed to the death penal­ty and dis­abil­i­ty and pro­files of indi­vid­u­als who have played key roles in chang­ing the laws to pro­tect prisoners with…

On July 18, 2024, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey asked the state Supreme Court to block a sched­uled evi­den­tiary hear­ing for Marcellus Williams and deny him the oppor­tu­ni­ty to estab­lish his inno­cence before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion on September 24, 2024. The Circuit Court of St. Louis County sched­uled the August 21^st hear­ing to assess the ​“clear and con­vinc­ing” evi­dence of Mr. Williams’ actu­al inno­cence that prompt­ed St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell to file a motion to vacate…