Entries by Hayley Bedard

On May 28, 2026, an Alabama fed­er­al dis­trict judge ruled that nitro­gen gas exe­cu­tions are con­sti­tu­tion­al and do not vio­late the Eighth Amendment’s pro­tec­tion against cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. In the first fed­er­al bench tri­al exam­in­ing nitro­gen gas as a method of exe­cu­tion, U.S. District Judge Emily C. Marks found that death-sen­­­tenced pris­on­er Jeffery Lee​“failed to prove that [Alabama’s gas] Protocol caus­es more than​‘the nec­es­sary suffering involved…

In a June 1, 2026, op-ed in The New York Times, Maria DeLiberato, senior coun­sel at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Capital Punishment Project, offers a first-per­­­son account of the May 21 attempt by Tennessee to exe­cute her client, Tony Carruthers — and the hour of suf­fer­ing she wit­nessed before Governor Bill Lee called off his exe­cu­tion. Ms. DeLiberato, who joined Mr. Carruthers’ legal team just two months before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion date, describes entering the…

In the May 2026 episode of 12:01 The Death Penalty in Context, DPI Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Dr. Naomi Yavneh Klos (pic­tured), Dean of the Honors College at the University of New Mexico, and a promi­nent schol­ar of the Holocaust. Dr. Yavneh Klos is a found­ing mem­ber of the Jews Against Gassing Coalition, a New-Orleans area group formed to oppose the use of nitro­gen gas as a method of exe­cu­tion in Louisiana. She joins DPI​’s pod­cast dur­ing Jewish American Heritage…

On May 13, 2026, the city of Austin, Texas agreed to pay $35 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion to four men — three sur­viv­ing and one deceased — who spent years under the shad­ow of wrong­ful con­vic­tions, accused of an infa­mous quadru­ple mur­der that DNA proved none of them com­mit­ted. The set­tle­ment, which must still be approved by the Austin City Council, came less than three months after a Travis County judge declared Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, Forrest Welborn, and Maurice Pierce…

On May 14, 2026, an Oklahoma judge grant­ed bail for for­mer death-sen­­­tenced pris­on­er Richard Glossip near­ly three decades after his arrest and ini­tial con­vic­tion. He was released hours lat­er. In her order, Oklahoma County District Judge Natalie Mai set Mr. Glossip’s bail at $500,000, and set con­di­tions for mon­i­tor­ing and behav­ior if he post­ed bail ahead of his retri­al. Mr. Glossip was released after post­ing bail and told reporters out­side the jail that he is​“just really…

On May 11, 2026, law­mak­ers in Israel passed leg­is­la­tion by a vote of 93 – 0 cre­at­ing a spe­cial tri­bunal with­in the mil­i­tary jus­tice sys­tem with the author­i­ty to impose the death penal­ty on Palestinians con­vict­ed of involve­ment in the October 7, 2023, attacks. The leg­is­la­tion pro­vides that pro­ceed­ings will be con­duct­ed in Jerusalem with a pub­licly avail­able livestream. The new tri­bunal will have the author­i­ty to charge approx­i­mate­ly 300 detained Palestinians…

On April 8, 2026, the Mississippi Legislature enact­ed Senate Bill 2821, cre­at­ing the new offense of​“cap­i­tal sex­u­al bat­tery” and autho­riz­ing the death penal­ty for the sex­u­al abuse, or attempt­ed sex­u­al abuse of a child under 12 years of age that results in​“injury to the child’s sex­u­al organs.” Mississippi Governor Tate Reaves approved the leg­is­la­tion, which will take effect July 1, 2026. With its pas­sage, Mississippi joins Florida (2023), Tennessee (2024), Idaho…

A South Carolina cir­cuit court judge has found that death-sen­­­tenced pris­on­er John Wood can­not be exe­cut­ed because of his severe schiz­o­phre­nia. The con­sti­tu­tion­al thresh­olds estab­lished by the U.S. Supreme Court in Ford v. Wainwright (1986) and clar­i­fied in Panetti v. Quarterman (2007) and Madison v. Alabama (2018) deter­mine that a pris­on­er may not be exe­cut­ed if they are unable to ratio­nal­ly under­stand the rea­son they are being put to death. Judge Grace Knie…

On April 27, 2026, coun­sel for Oklahoma death-sen­­­tenced pris­on­er Brenda Andrew, the only woman on the state’s death row, filed a peti­tion ask­ing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit to recon­sid­er whether her con­sti­tu­tion­al right to a fair tri­al was vio­lat­ed by the prosecution’s use of​“ram­pant gen­der bias” dur­ing her tri­al. In January 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a per curi­am deci­sion, remand­ed the case for con­sid­er­a­tion of whether the state’s…