Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

The U.S. Supreme Court has pushed back argu­ments in three death-penal­­­ty cas­es so it can expe­dite con­sid­er­a­tion of two cas­es involv­ing Texas’ restric­tive abor­tion statute. To hear argu­ment in United States v. Texas and Whole Women’s Health v. Jackson on November 1, 2021, the court resched­uled argu­ment in Ramirez (John) v. Collier and Shinn v. Ramirez (David) and Jones. The Court will now hear…

The U.S. Supreme Court on October 18, 2021 denied review in the case of Texas death-row pris­on­er Melissa Elizabeth Lucio (pic­tured). Lucio was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death on charges that she mur­dered her two-year-old daugh­ter, Mariah. Lucio has long main­tained that Mariah died from an accidental…

A Bastrop, Texas tri­al court heard clos­ing argu­ments October 18, 2021 on whether Texas death-row pris­on­er Rodney Reed should be grant­ed a new tri­al in the April 1996 mur­der of Stacey Stites. The argu­ment con­clud­ed the adver­sar­i­al por­tion of an extra­or­di­nary evi­den­tiary hear­ing ordered by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) to review Reed’s claims that pros­e­cu­tors secured his con­vic­tions for rape and mur­der by suppressing exculpatory…

Alabama has exe­cut­ed an intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled death-row pris­on­er who was sen­tenced to death by his tri­al judge despite a non-unan­i­­­mous sen­tenc­ing rec­om­men­da­tion by his jury. Willie B. Smith III was exe­cut­ed by three-drug lethal injec­tion on October 21, 2021 after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review his appeal of a low­er fed­er­al court rul­ing deny­ing his claim that the state’s choice to exe­cute him by lethal injection…

A St. Louis Circuit Court judge has denied St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner​’s (pic­tured) July 2021 request for spe­cial pros­e­cu­tors to han­dle three death-eli­gi­ble homi­cide cas­es in her juris­dic­tion. On October 15, 2021, Circuit Judge Elizabeth Hogan wrote that the con­flicts cit­ed by Gardner’s office in its request for a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor were not​“dis­qual­i­fy­ing” and there­fore that​“the Court has no author­i­ty to appoint a special…

Alleging that Shelby County Assistant District Attorney General Stephen Jones may have been rep­re­sent­ing the pros­e­cu­tion in his case while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly serv­ing as a cap­i­tal case staff attor­ney assist­ing the county’s judges, Tennessee death-row pris­on­er Pervis Payne (pic­tured) has moved to dis­qual­i­fy the Shelby County District Attorney General’s office from fur­ther par­tic­i­pa­tion in his case. Payne…

An intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled Alabama death-row pris­on­er has appealed a fed­er­al dis­trict court rul­ing that clears the way for his exe­cu­tion on October…

In a deci­sion with poten­tial to vacate a num­ber of Oklahoma exe­cu­tion dates, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has held that a low­er fed­er­al court abused its dis­cre­tion in dis­miss­ing six death-row pris­on­ers from a law­suit chal­leng­ing the state’s execution…

Death-row exoneree Robert DuBoise (pic­tured) is suing the City of Tampa, four Tampa police offi­cers, and the foren­sic odon­tol­o­gist who false­ly tes­ti­fied against him, alleg­ing that they fab­ri­cat­ed evi­dence that led to his wrong­ful con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. DuBoise was exon­er­at­ed in August 2020 after a Conviction Integrity Unit reviewed his case and new DNA evi­dence exclud­ed him as the per­pe­tra­tor of the rape and mur­der for which he was…

A United States Supreme Court sharply divid­ed along ide­o­log­i­cal lines heard oral argu­ment October 13, 2021 on the Department of Justice’s appeal of a fed­er­al cir­cuit court’s rul­ing over­turn­ing the death sen­tences imposed on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for his con­vic­tions in the 2013 Boston Marathon bomb­ing. Veteran court watch­ers report­ed that the six con­ser­v­a­tive jus­tices seemed poised to over­turn the fed­er­al appeal court’s grant of a new…