Entries by Hayley Bedard

On July 18, 2025, the Davidson County Chancery Court issued a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion requir­ing the Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC) to ensure that Byron Black’s implant­ed heart device (car­diac implantable elec­tron­ic device, or CIED) is switched off just ahead of his exe­cu­tion by a car­diac spe­cial­ist or qual­i­fied tech­ni­cian work­ing under such super­vi­sion. In June 2025, coun­sel for Mr. Black filed a motion for a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion, explaining that…

On July 16, 2025, Smith County District Judge Austin Reeve Jackson set an exe­cu­tion date of October 16, 2025 for Robert Roberson, a man with a strong inno­cence claim who has a habeas cor­pus peti­tion pend­ing at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA). Judge Jackson, after hear­ing argu­ments from both defense coun­sel for Mr. Roberson and attor­neys from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office, ruled that there was no legal basis for not sign­ing an exe­cu­tion order.​“It doesn’t…

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond is fac­ing accu­sa­tions that he broke a writ­ten agree­ment that would have freed for­mer death row pris­on­er Richard Glossip from prison more than two years ago, accord­ing to court doc­u­ments filed in mid-July 2025. The rev­e­la­tion cen­ters on email exchanges from April 2023, where AG Drummond, in a thread with Don Knight, coun­sel for Mr. Glossip, agreed to a plea deal that would have result­ed in Mr. Glossip’s imme­di­ate release after more…

On July 7, 2025, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of for­mer Virginia death-sen­­­tenced pris­on­er Justin Wolfe, vacat­ing a low­er court dis­missal of his most recent habeas peti­tion, and paving the way for a new hear­ing where Mr. Wolfe will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to pro­vide new evi­dence in sup­port of his inno­cence. Mr. Wolfe was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 2002 for the 2001 mur­der-for-hire of his cannabis sup­pli­er in Northern Virginia. In his most…

On June 26, 2025, the United States Supreme Court issued a rare 6 – 3 rul­ing in favor of a Texas death row pris­on­er, Ruben Gutierrez, hold­ing that he may pro­ceed with his law­suit chal­leng­ing Texas’s post-con­vic­­­tion DNA statute on con­sti­tu­tion­al grounds. Mr. Gutierrez was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1999 for the mur­der and rob­bery of an 85-year-old woman but has long main­tained he did not know his code­fen­dants would kill the vic­tim. According to the decision,…

On June 16, 2025, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a motion in the Anderson County District Court request­ing a new exe­cu­tion date for Robert Roberson, despite the fact that a motion from defense coun­sel with new evi­dence in sup­port of Mr. Roberson’s actu­al inno­cence remains pend­ing. As the Dallas Morning Editorial Board notes, it is​“unusu­al” that “[AG] Paxton’s office is involved” in request­ing the exe­cu­tion date. AG Paxton has active­ly sought Mr. Roberson’s…

On June 9, 2025, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond announced that his office will retry death row pris­on­er Richard Glossip but will not seek the death penal­ty. AG Drummond’s deci­sion to retry Mr. Glossip fol­lows the February 2025 United States Supreme Court rul­ing in Glossip v. Oklahoma, in which the high court threw out Mr. Glossip’s 2004 con­vic­tion and ordered a new tri­al because pros­e­cu­tors allowed a key wit­ness to lie in court and with­held crucial information…