Entries by Hayley Bedard

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…

On April 24, 2026, Pope Leo XIV deliv­ered a video mes­sage offer­ing his sup­port and bless­ings to those work­ing​“for the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty in the United States of America and around the world.” His mes­sage was shared at DePaul University in the Pope’s home city of Chicago, for an event titled​“A Beacon of Light in Darkness,” mark­ing the 15^th anniver­sary of Illinois’ abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty. Among those par­tic­i­pat­ing in the event were not­ed author and…

On April 24, 2026, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy released a detailed report, Restoring and Strengthening the Federal Death Penalty, call­ing on the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to rein­state use of a sin­­­gle-drug (pen­to­bar­bi­tal) exe­cu­tion pro­to­col, and urg­ing Congress to enact sweep­ing leg­isla­tive changes that would expand the reach and speed of the fed­er­al death penal­ty. Alongside the release of the report, DOJ announced that it has direct­ed BOP to…

On April 7, 2026, a Cuyahoga County judge vacat­ed the death sen­tence of Charles Maxwell and ordered his resen­tenc­ing to life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. After an evi­den­tiary hear­ing, the court found that Mr. Maxwell suf­fered from delu­sion­al dis­or­der, caused by sev­er­al trau­mat­ic brain injuries, at the time of the crime for which he was sen­tenced to death. According to data from the Ohio Attorney General’s office, Mr. Maxwell’s resen­tenc­ing marks the…

With weeks left before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion on May 21, 2026, coun­sel for Tennessee death-sen­­­tenced pris­on­er Tony Carruthers has asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to order DNA test­ing that they argue could prove their client’s inno­cence. On April 9, lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed an emer­gency motion seek­ing DNA test­ing​“on spe­cif­ic pieces of pro­ba­tive phys­i­cal evi­dence, most of which has nev­er been test­ed, and which will like­ly point to…

Ohio’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem has come into sharp focus with the release of two reports that exam­ine four decades of the state’s death penal­ty record and draw stark­ly dif­fer­ent con­clu­sions about the future of Ohio’s death penal­ty. On March 30, Ohioans to Stop Executions (OTSE) pub­lished Beyond Reasonable Doubt: Confronting the Wrongful Conviction Crisis in the State of Ohio, doc­u­ment­ing the record of mis­takes and errors that result­ed in 12 exon­er­a­tions.​“The death…