Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

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 legislation. Flanked by the bill’s sponsors, Vice President Kamala Harris, and family members of the late Ida B. Wells and Emmett Till in a ceremony on the White House lawn, Biden signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act (pictured), officially denominating lynching a federal hate crime. The law allows for crimes — such as…

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 state. House Bill 658 became law less than three weeks after the measure failed on a 4 – 4 vote in the Senate Judiciary and Rules Committee. Under Idaho legislative rules, a bill that fails in a committee vote is normally dead for the remainder of the legislative session. However, in a…

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 illness. On March 25, 2022, the Republican-dominated body voted 25 – 9 to pass HB 269, a bill that prohibits the death penalty for defendants diagnosed with any of four specified mental health disorders. The measure overwhelmingly passed the House on February 9 by a vote of 76 – 19. If signed by Governor Andy Beshear, a…

Nearly 90 members of the Texas House of Representatives from across the ideological spectrum have issued a bipartisan call for the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Greg Abbott to grant clemency to death-row prisoner Melissa Lucio. In a news conference in the state capitol on March 24, 2022, State Rep. Jeff Leach (R‑Plano, pictured), co-chair of the House’s bipartisan Criminal Justice Reform Caucus, announced that 81 House members had signed a letter urging Governor Abbott and…

On March 24, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed lower court orders that had denied a Texas death-row prisoner’s request for his pastor to touch him and audibly pray during his execution. In ruling for John Henry Ramirez (pictured), the Court emphasized Texas’ ability to prevent any delay of his execution by simply creating reasonable procedures to allow Ramirez the accommodations he seeks. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion of the court, joined by seven other Justices. Justice Clarence…

An Ohio appeals court has ordered that death-row prisoner Tyrone Noling (pictured) be granted access to prosecutors’ and law enforcement files that may contain exculpatory evidence that has been hidden for decades from the defense. On March 14, 2022, the Ohio Court of Appeals reversed a July 2021 ruling by the Portage County Court of Common Pleas that had denied Noling’s motion to review the file of the Portage County Prosecutor in his case and the investigative files of the Portage County…

Fewer countries are using the death penalty for drug offenses, but according to a new global report, executions increased in those that did and took place in proceedings characterized by authoritarianism and secrecy. In its eleventh annual report on The Death Penalty for Drug Offenses: Global Overview 2021, released mid-March 2022, the international drug monitor Harm Reduction International (HRI) found that eight “high application” nations contributed to an increase in known death sentences…

March 25, 2022 will mark the end of the only death penalty case in Wyoming — or at least the family of Lisa Marie Kimmell hopes it will. The family traveled from Colorado and Arizona to offer in-person victim-impact statements at the January 21, 2022 sentencing hearing where Dale Wayne Eaton (pictured), who had been Wyoming’s only death-row prisoner, was scheduled to be resentenced to life. But as they waited in a Casper courtroom for the proceeding to start, Eaton was nowhere to be found. The…

South Carolina has completed preparations to execute the state’s death-row prisoners by firing squad. In a news release issued on March 18, 2022, the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) announced that it had notified the state attorney general’s office that SCDC “is now able to carry out an execution by firing squad as required by law.” The announcement removed a major hurdle in South Carolina’s efforts to restart executions. The state has not carried out any executions since 2011…

Military prosecutors and defense attorneys are reportedly discussing plea deals that could take the death penalty off the table in the Guantánamo military commission cases of five men accused of involvement in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The negotiations, first reported by the New York Times on March 15, 2022 and subsequently confirmed by defense counsel, would require alleged 9/11 planner Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four others to plead…