Entries by Hayley Bedard
News
Apr 17, 2025
Guantanamo Judge Rules Government Cannot Use Confession Obtained Through Torture in 9/11 Capital Case
On April 11, 2025, Judge Colonel Matthew McCall ruled that confessions elicited from Ammar al-Baluchi, accused of conspiring in the September 11th terrorism attacks, were the result of torture carried out by the CIA and as a result cannot be used against Mr. al-Baluchi in any legal proceeding. According to Col. McCall, Mr. al-Baluchi involuntarily incriminated himself in 2007 after extensive“psychological conditioning” through torture and abuse during his…
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Apr 16, 2025
Tennessee Death Row Prisoners Ask Governor Lee to Halt Scheduled Executions While Courts Assess Constitutionality of New Lethal Injection Protocol
On April 10, 2025, attorneys for Tennessee death row prisoners Oscar Smith and Byron Black called on Governor Bill Lee to issue a temporary reprieve in their cases. In their letter, the attorneys ask Gov. Lee“to pause all executions in Tennessee until March 1, 2026,” to permit a pending case challenging the constitutionality of the state’s new pentobarbital lethal injection procedure to be decided. In late December 2024, the Tennessee Department of Corrections…
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Apr 08, 2025
Records Request Reveals Indiana Department of Corrections Spent $900,000 for Lethal Injection Drugs
According to public records released to the Indiana Capital Chronicle, the Indiana Department of Corrections (IDOC) spent $900,000 on the drugs needed to carry out the lethal injection execution of Joseph Corcoran in December 2024. The newly released record is so highly redacted that just one line of text appears:“IDOC shall pay the Contractor the sum of nine hundred thousand dollars ($900,000).” The document does not show how much pentobarbital was purchased, when it…
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Apr 07, 2025
U.S. Attorney General Directs Prosecutors to Seek Death Penalty for Luigi Mangione, Marking First Federal Death Sentence Sought By This Trump Administration
On April 1, 2025, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced she has directed acting U.S. Attorney for Manhattan, Matthew Podolsky, to seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione for the 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. This is the first time AG Bondi has directed prosecutors to seek the death penalty since President Donald Trump assumed office in January 2025, when he issued an executive order including a call to“restore” the federal death penalty. In a…
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Apr 03, 2025
Georgia Senate Passes Bill Lowering Legal Standard for Intellectual Disability for Capital Defendants; Sends Bill to Governor’s Desk
On March 31, 2025, the Georgia Senate, in a 53 – 1 vote, passed HB 123, sending the bill to Governor Brian Kemp’s desk to be signed. HB 123 provides pretrial hearings for capital defendants to raise intellectual disability claims and would lower the standard of proof for those claims from“beyond a reasonable doubt” to a“preponderance of evidence,” in line with the other 26 states that still retain the death penalty. The near-unanimous Senate vote comes on the…
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Mar 27, 2025
U.S. Supreme Court Denies Review in Texas Faulty DNA Evidence Case, Despite Prosecutor Confession of Error
On March 24, 2025, the United States Supreme Court denied review of Areli Escobar’s (pictured) most recent appeal of his murder conviction, which argued for relief based on the fact that the Texas prosecutor had confessed error over the misleading use of inconclusive DNA evidence at trial. In his petition, Mr. Escobar’s legal team said Travis County prosecutors had relied heavily at trial on compromised evidence analyzed by the Austin Police Department’s crime…
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Mar 25, 2025
Records Show Tennessee Officials Have Spent Nearly $600,000 of Taxpayer Funds for Lethal Injection Drugs Since 2017
According to records requested by The Tennessean, between 2017 and 2025 the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) spent nearly $600,000 of taxpayer funds obtaining drugs for lethal injection executions. Specific information about the drugs’ sources and origins remains unknown because of the state’s secrecy provisions. During this time period seven executions were carried out: five by electrocution, two by lethal injection. The TDOC initially refused to respond…
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Mar 20, 2025
DPI’s Podcast 12:01 The Death Penalty in Context: Sabrina Butler-Smith on Wrongful Convictions and Motherhood
In this month’s podcast episode of 12:01 The Death Penalty in Context, DPI’s Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Sabrina Butler-Smith (pictured), who was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death at age 17 for causing the death of her nine-month-old son. After two years and nine months on death row, Ms. Butler-Smith’s conviction was overturned. At a second trial, it was determined that her son died from a serious medical condition, polycystic kidney disease,…
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Mar 18, 2025
Nine Tennessee Death Row Prisoners Challenge State’s One-Drug Lethal Injection Protocol, Citing “High Risk of Torturous Death”
On March 14, 2025, a group of nine death row prisoners in Tennessee filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s sole use of pentobarbital in its revised lethal injection protocol, arguing it creates a“high risk of a torturous death.” In December 2024, the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) completed a multi-year lethal injection protocol review and announced that instead of the previous three-drug protocol, the state would shift to rely on just one drug:…
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Mar 17, 2025
Idaho Governor Signs Legislation Authorizing Firing Squad as State’s Primary Execution Method
On March 12, 2025, Idaho Governor Brad Little (pictured) signed House Bill 37 into law, making the firing squad the state’s primary method of execution. In a statement to Catholic News Agency, Gov. Little said,“I have long made clear my support of capital punishment…My signing of [this bill] is consistent with my support of the Idaho Legislature’s actions in setting the policies around methods of execution in the state of Idaho.” The bill, which takes effect on July 1,…
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