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 any method employed to extinguish…

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 execution chamber…

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 innocent of murder…

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 accused of terrorism offenses under…

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 (2025), Oklahoma (2025)…

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 issued a 12-page written decision on…