Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

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 issue. The February 8, 2021 ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upholds the conviction and death sentence imposed on James Broadnax for his participation in the…

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’ lawsuit.] On March 5, 2021, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, Congregations Organized for…

New poll results show that more Nevadans now support alternatives to capital punishment and repealing the death penalty than favor its continued use, marking a major shift in opinion in the state in just the past four years. A January 2021 poll of Nevada voters by David Binder Research, released March 4, 2021, found that 49% of Nevadans favor replacing the state’s death penalty with life without parole, compared with 46% who would keep capital punishment. The results represent a…

In the March 2021 edition of Discussions with DPIC, Death Penalty Information Center Senior Director of Research and Special Projects Ngozi Ndulue is joined by Carine Williams — the Chief Program Strategy Officer at the Innocence Project — for a conversation about innocence, the death penalty, and “the function of freedom.” Reflecting on the gross miscarriage of justice exhibited in wrongful convictions and exonerations, Williams stresses two critical themes: death is irrevocable and ending the…

Arizona corrections officials have announced that the state has procured a supply of an execution drug and is now able to resume executions after a nearly seven-year hiatus. David Shinn, director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry (ADCRR), notified Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich that the prison had obtained pentobarbital and “now stands ready to commence the execution process.” The last execution in Arizona took place on July 23, 2014, when the state…

A Wyoming state senate committee has advanced to the full Senate a bill to repeal the state’s death penalty. After taking testimony from witnesses including the state public defender’s office, family members of murder victims, a death-row exoneree, anti-death-penalty activists, religious organizations, and a national expert on capital punishment, the all-Republican Senate Revenue Committee voted 4 – 1 on March 4, 2021 to pass Senate File 150. The vote marked the second time in three years that a…

An evenly divided Indiana Supreme Court has affirmed a trial court ruling that requires the Indiana Department of Correction (IDOC) to release records related to the lethal injection drugs Indiana has used in carrying out executions, including the identities of the drug suppliers. The documents were the subject of a public records suit filed by Washington, D.C. lawyer A. Katherine Toomey under the Indiana Access to Public Records Act (APRA). In a statement issued after the decision, Toomey’s…

In an overwhelming bipartisan vote, the Kentucky House of Representatives has approved a bill that would prohibit the death penalty for people with severe mental illness. On March 1, 2021, the House voted by a margin of 75 – 16 to pass HB 148. The bill received the support of 56 Republicans and 19 Democrats in Kentucky’s Republican-dominated legislature. House Majority Whip Rep. Chad McCoy (R‑Bardstown, pictured), who sponsored the bill, said, “This is not an insanity defense, not taking away…

As supporters of Oklahoma death-row prisoner Julius Jones submitted more than six million signatures supporting his petition for clemency, new evidence emerged that another man had committed the killing that sent Jones to death row. On February 25, 2021, Jones’ supporters joined members of his family and Oklahoma City faith leaders for a rally and march to the offices of the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, where they delivered boxes containing petitions signed by more than 6 million people…

Frustrated by the inability to put prisoners to death, legislators in two states are seeking to jumpstart the execution process by changing the laws that govern how executions may be conducted. After gaining little traction in prior legislative sessions, a bill to make electrocution the default method of execution is moving forward in South Carolina, which is approaching ten years since its last execution. In Montana, after a court ruled in 2015 that the drugs in the state’s proposed execution…