Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Two death-sentenced prisoners in Kansas have filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the state’s policy of automatic solitary confinement for death-row prisoners is unconstitutional. The two prisoners, Sidney Gleason and Scott Cheever, have been held in isolation for 14 and 12 years, respectively. Seven of the ten people on Kansas’ death row have been kept in solitary confinement for more than ten years. The prisoners’ lawsuit asserts that the practice of incarcerating all death-row prisoners in…

Lawyers for federal death-row prisoner Lisa Montgomery filed suit in federal district court in Washington, D.C. on November 12, seeking to stay her December 8 execution because the lead counsel in her case have contracted the coronavirus. A stay is necessary, the complaint alleges, because Montgomery’s lawyers “cannot represent her because they are seriously ill, through no fault of their own. On the contrary, they are sick because [Attorney General William] Barr recklessly scheduled Mrs.

A diverse coalition of more than 1,000 advocates, including current and former prosecutors, activists fighting sex trafficking and domestic violence, and mental health organizations, have joined forces to ask President Donald Trump to halt the upcoming execution of the only woman on federal death row, Lisa Montgomery (pictured). In a series of letters delivered to administration officials and released to the public by Montgomery’s lawyers on November 11, 2020, the advocates argue that…

The United States faced harsh criticism from the world community for its continued use of capital punishment during a United Nations review of its human rights record on November 9, 2020. During the U.N. Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review of the United States’ human rights record on November 9, 2020, countries around the world criticized the U.S. for systemic racism, police violence against civilians, separation of immigrant families and internment of immigrant children, and use of…

Lawyers for James Frazier (pictured), Ohio’s oldest death-row prisoner, have filed a motion to prevent his execution, arguing that he has severe vascular dementia that has rendered him unable to understand his punishment. Legal papers filed in the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas in October 2020 assert that Frazier, now 79 years old, suffered a series of mini-strokes in 2017 that have caused serious physical, psychological, and cognitive impairments that make him incompetent to be executed.

Citing the coronavirus pandemic, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has granted a temporary reprieve to death-row prisoner Pervis Payne, halting his scheduled December 3, 2020 execution. The execution was the last scheduled by any state in 2020, assuring that states will carry out fewer executions in 2020 than in any other year since 1983. Lee issued a temporary reprieve on November 6, 2020 that will remain in effect until April 9, 2021. A short statement released by the governor in connection with…

The Death Penalty Information Center is partnering with the Veteran Advocacy Project to present a six-part webinar series on Veterans and the Death Penalty. The webinars, which are co-sponsored by Advancing Real Change, Inc. and Witness to Innocence, will address a broad range of serious issues that have made veterans disproportionately vulnerable to capital prosecution. The series opens Monday, November 9, the week the nation commemorates Veterans Day 2020, with a session on Veterans on Death…

The U.S. Supreme Court’s “shadow docket” is having a growing and disproportionate impact on the Court’s resolution of controversial social issues, with some of its most profound effects being felt in death penalty cases. The term, coined in 2015 by law professor William Baude, refers to expedited emergency rulings made by the court without full briefing and argument, typically unsigned and rendered without an opinion explaining the Court’s legal reasoning. In a seven-article online symposium…

Reform prosecutors made further inroads in the American legal system in the November 2020 general election, unseating prosecutors in several of the most prolific death-sentencing counties in the United States and capturing open seats in major Texas and Florida counties, but falling short in several other high profile races. Election results updated on Thursday, November 5, showed that candidates pledging systemic reforms, including reduced use or abandonment of the death penalty, had won…

A three-judge panel in Madison County, Ohio has acquitted a man prosecutors charged with capital murder for allegedly setting his car on fire to burn down his house with his wife and children inside. The judges rejected prosecutors’ arguments that Peter Romans (pictured with his family) had poured gasoline on the driver’s side of the family’s SUV and set the car ablaze with the intent that the conflagration spread to the house to kill his wife Billi and their two children, Ami and Caleb.