Entries by Hayley Bedard

Christa Pike, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, has filed a law­suit in the Davidson County Chancery Court chal­leng­ing the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col, assert­ing it vio­lates her con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and con­flicts with her reli­gious beliefs. The state’s new exe­cu­tion pro­to­col relies sole­ly on pen­to­bar­bi­tal to induce res­pi­ra­to­ry and car­diac arrest, rather than the for­mer three-drug cock­tail. Ms. Pike argues that Tennessee’s lim­i­ta­tion on clergy,…

An autop­sy of Richard Djerf, who was exe­cut­ed in Arizona in October 2025, has renewed con­cerns about the state’s lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tion pro­to­col and the state’s efforts to address long­stand­ing exe­cu­­­tion-relat­ed con­cerns. Mr. Djerf was con­vict­ed for the September 1993 mur­ders of four mem­bers of the Luna fam­i­ly in Phoenix. The autop­sy, con­duct­ed by Pinal County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. John Hu, estab­lished for the first time that med­ical personnel encountered…

On January 17, 2006, California exe­cut­ed Clarence Ray Allen — the last per­son put to death by the state. Two decades lat­er, California’s death row pop­u­la­tion has fall­en to 580 pris­on­ers, down from its peak near 750 in the mid-2010s. In the time since Mr. Allen’s exe­cu­tion, the death penal­ty in California has seen sus­tained scruti­ny as con­cerns with racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, inno­cence, and costs con­tin­ue to grow. Governor Gavin Newsom has placed a moratorium on…

The United States car­ried out 47 exe­cu­tions in 2025, and Florida car­ried out 19 — the high­est num­ber in state his­to­ry and more than dou­ble its pre­vi­ous mod­ern record, accord­ing to a year-end report from Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP). Executions in Florida — which aver­aged one exe­cu­tion every 16 days from February 2025 through December 2025 — account­ed for 40% of the 47 exe­cu­tions nation­wide, mak­ing Florida a clear out­lier in the use of the death…

On December 5, 2025, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro issued an exe­cu­tion reprieve for Richard Roland Laird, the same day the Department of Corrections Secretary Laurel Harry signed a Notice of Execution for January 2, 2026. In issu­ing the same-day reprieve, Gov. Shapiro act­ed on his promise to main­tain an exe­cu­tion mora­to­ri­um in Pennsylvania. In February 2023, Gov. Shapiro announced he would con­tin­ue his pre­de­ces­sor Tom Wolf’s halt on exe­cu­tions, and called upon the…

The Death Penalty Information Center’s new report, The Death Penalty in 2025: Year End Report, released on December 15, gen­er­at­ed wide­spread nation­al and inter­na­tion­al cov­er­age. Despite an uptick in exe­cu­tions this year, media cov­er­age focused large­ly on the report’s core find­ings: new death sen­tences remain near his­toric lows, juries are increas­ing­ly reluc­tant to impose death sen­tences, and the death penal­ty con­tin­ues its steady decline across most of the…

The U.S Supreme Court announced on December 15, 2025, that it will hear the appeal of Mississippi death-sen­­­tenced pris­on­er Terry Pitchford, who has argued his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights were vio­lat­ed because of race dis­crim­i­na­tion dur­ing jury selec­tion. Mr. Pitchford was sen­tenced to death near­ly two decades ago for his role in the shoot­ing death of Reuben Britt. At the cen­ter of Mr. Pitchford’s case is Doug Evans, a Mississippi dis­trict attor­ney whose con­duct has drawn…

Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich for­mal­ly dis­missed the case against Elwood Jones on December 12, 2025, end­ing a near­ly 30-year saga that saw Mr. Jones spend 27 years on Ohio’s death row for a mur­der he did not com­mit.​“I did not take this extra­or­di­nary step light­ly,” said Prosecutor Pillich.​“But after review­ing the evi­dence, I am not con­vinced that Mr. Jones killed Rhoda Nathan.” Mr. Jones, now 57, was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1996 for the 1994 murder…

Harold Nichols is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed by lethal injec­tion on December 11, 2025, despite ques­tions from doc­tors and lawyers about whether Tennessee’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col caus­es unnec­es­sary pain and suf­fer­ing. Mr. Nichols was sen­tenced to death for the 1988 rape and mur­der of Karen Pooley, a Chattanooga State University stu­dent, and his case involves a broad­er legal bat­tle over the secre­cy of Tennessee’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col. At the cen­ter of the controversy…

Glynn Simmons keeps a copy of his death war­rant, signed by the Oklahoma gov­er­nor 50 years ago, order­ing his exe­cu­tion in the elec­tric chair. He was 22 years old at the time, con­vict­ed of a mur­der he did not com­mit. Forty-eight years lat­er, after becom­ing the longest-incar­­­cer­at­ed wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed per­son in U.S. his­to­ry, Mr. Simmons’ sto­ry has become cen­tral to a grow­ing con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment ques­tion­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment — one that Nan Tolson is…