Entries by Hayley Bedard

A March 9, 2026, competency hearing for Andre Thomas, a death-sentenced prisoner in Texas, has been postponed to an unspecified date because of concerns that Mr. Thomas is too mentally ill to be transported to his competency hearing and he could not be re-examined by the State’s expert. Mr. Thomas was scheduled to be executed in April 2023; however, his execution date was withdrawn in March 2023, citing concerns with his severe mental illness (SMI) and competency to face execution. “In my…

UPDATE: On March 10, 2026, two days ahead of his scheduled execution, Governor Kay Ivey granted clemency for Charles “Sonny” Burton, commuting his death sentence to a sentence of life without parole. In a statement, Gov. Ivey said, “I cannot proceed in good conscience with the execution of Mr. Burton under such disparate circumstances. I believe it would be unjust for one participant in this crime to be executed while the participant who pulled the trigger was not.” In response to the…

The federal government says it plans to transfer “almost all” former federal death row prisoners whose sentences were commuted by President Biden to the nation’s most notorious and restrictive prison within the next several weeks, according to a court filing dated February 4, 2026. In a two-page notice filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the Justice Department informed Judge Timothy J. Kelly that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) intends to move the prisoners from the…

Among the more than 100 million Americans watching the Super Bowl on Sunday, Charles Flores (pictured) watched from a 9‑by-12-foot cell in Livingston, Texas, marking his 27^th Super Bowl on death row for a crime he has maintained he did not commit. In a podcast interview with Pablo Torre, a journalist and sportswriter, Mr. Flores sat down at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston to discuss his love of the Dallas Cowboys, watching the Super Bowl on death row, the intricacies of his fight to prove his…

When Lance Shockley was executed in Missouri in October 2025, he requested the presence of his daughter, an ordained minister, in the execution chamber as his spiritual adviser. The Missouri Department of Corrections (MDOC) denied his request, and Mr. Shockley was executed. His case represents one example of how states have applied the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in Ramirez v. Collier, a decision that acknowledged the religious rights of death-sentenced prisoners at the time of their…

In the January 2026 episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Aramis Ayala, Executive Director of Fair and Just Prosecution. Ms. Ayala made history in 2016 as Florida’s first Black state attorney and later became the first Black woman in Florida to be nominated for state attorney general by a major party. In the podcast, she discusses her decision to not seek the death penalty, the reaction to her decision, and the evolving role of…

For updates on the September 30, 2026 failed execution attempt of Christa Pike, please see our full story here. 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…