Entries by Death Penalty Information Center


News 

Mar 232021

U.S. Supreme Court to Review Federal Appeals Court Decision that Overturned Death Sentence in Boston Marathon Bombing

The United States Supreme Court has grant­ed a Department of Justice request filed dur­ing the admin­is­tra­tion of President Donald Trump to review a fed­er­al appeals court deci­sion that over­turned the death sen­tences imposed on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (pic­tured) for his role in the April 2013 Boston Marathon bomb­ing that killed three peo­ple and injured more than 250

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News 

Mar 222021

Business Executives Launch Campaign Against the Death Penalty

A group of busi­ness lead­ers have launched a cam­paign call­ing for an end to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Virgin Group CEO Richard Branson (pic­tured) announced the ini­tia­tive at the vir­tu­al South By Southwest fes­ti­val on March 18, 2021, say­ing, The death penal­ty is bro­ken beyond repair and plain­ly fails to deliv­er jus­tice by every rea­son­able mea­sure. It is marred by cru­el­ty, waste, inef­fec­tive­ness, dis­crim­i­na­tion and an unac­cept­able risk of error. … By speak­ing out at this crucial…

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News 

Mar 172021

Former Alabama Attorney General, Appeals Court Judges Call for New Trial for Death-Row Prisoner Toforest Johnson

More than a dozen for­mer Alabama pros­e­cu­tors, judges, and state bar pres­i­dents have filed briefs in a Birmingham court call­ing for a new tri­al for Alabama death-row pris­on­er Toforest Johnson (pic­tured, cen­ter, with fam­i­ly mem­bers). The extra­or­di­nary fil­ings join Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr in sup­port­ing efforts by lawyers from the Southern Center for Human Rights, the University of California-Berkeley Law School Death Penalty Clinic, and the…

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News 

Mar 152021

Commentary: Death-Penalty Reform Requires Action at the State Level

In the United States, the respon­si­bil­i­ty for defin­ing what is a crime and enforc­ing the crim­i­nal laws rests pri­mar­i­ly with the states. That fact, New York Times colum­nist Charles Blow (pic­tured) writes, makes action at the state lev­el “[t]he true fron­tier of crim­i­nal jus­tice equal­i­ty.” From cash bail to the death penal­ty, Blow says, “[i]f the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is to move toward racial equal­i­ty and lib­er­a­tion this change will have to start with the…

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News 

Mar 122021

Texas Federal Appeals Court Refuses to Consider Suppressed Evidence of Dallas Prosecutors’ Race-Based Jury Selection Practices, Upholds Conviction and Death Sentence

A fed­er­al appeals court has per­mit­ted a Texas dis­trict court to dis­miss a death-row prisoner’s claim that Dallas pros­e­cu­tors uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly struck Black jurors in his case with­out con­sid­er­ing evi­dence of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion that pros­e­cu­tors had with­held from the defense dur­ing state court lit­i­ga­tion on the…

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News 

Mar 112021

Civil Rights Groups Accuse California District Attorneys of Unlawfully Interfering in Death Penalty Lawsuit

Five civ­il rights orga­ni­za­tions have asked a California appeals court to block the efforts of three coun­ty dis­trict attor­neys to lift stays of exe­cu­tion agreed to by the state as part of a fed­er­al-court set­tle­ment of death-row pris­on­ers’ chal­lenge to California’s lethal-injec­­tion pro­to­col. [UPDATE: On March 9, 2021, the First District Court of Appeals dis­missed the groups’…

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