Entries by Hayley Bedard

Benjamin Ritchie’s exe­cu­tion in Indiana on May 20, 2025, has raised new con­cerns about the use of pen­to­bar­bi­tal after defense coun­sel report­ed their client dis­played an unusu­al phys­i­cal reac­tion after being inject­ed with the drug. But because Indiana offi­cials bar media wit­ness­es from observ­ing exe­cu­tions, the pub­lic has no inde­pen­dent wit­ness reports on what tran­spired. Steve Schutte, an attor­ney for Mr. Ritchie, told the Indiana Capital Chronicle that Mr. Ritchie…

On May 15, 2025, the Utah Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly upheld a low­er court’s deci­sion vacat­ing Douglas Carter’s (pic­tured) con­vic­tion and death sen­tence and order­ing a new tri­al. The Court found that Utah County pros­e­cu­tors vio­lat­ed Mr. Carter’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights on mul­ti­ple occa­sions with their​“inten­tion­al mis­con­duct” dur­ing his 1985 tri­al that accused him of caus­ing the death of Eva Olesen dur­ing a home inva­sion. In November 2023, Utah County District…

The Idaho Department of Corrections (IDOC) has admit­ted to spend­ing $200,000 on lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tion drugs since 2023, all of which have since expired with­out use. Josh Tewalt, the for­mer direc­tor of IDOC said in recent court fil­ings that the drugs in IDOC​’s pos­ses­sion expired because of repeat­ed delays asso­ci­at­ed with sched­ul­ing an exe­cu­tion. Sanda Kuzeta-Cerimagic, an IDOC spokesper­son, told the Idaho Statesman that the depart­ment does not currently have…

On May 8, 2025, a group of fam­i­ly mem­bers who have lost loved ones to vio­lence in Tennessee deliv­ered a let­ter to Governor Bill Lee’s office request­ing that he halt the state’s upcom­ing sched­uled exe­cu­tions. In their let­ter, the group of 51​“vic­tims, sur­vivors, and fam­i­ly mem­bers of those impact­ed by vio­lent crime” argue the death penal­ty does not act as a heal­ing tool for vic­tims and takes away from state-fund­ed resources that could help with their heal­ing. For these…

Jeffrey Hutchinson is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Florida on May 1, 2025, despite a long­stand­ing men­tal ill­ness and his attorney’s claim that he is men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent. On April 24, 2025, attor­neys for the Gulf War vet­er­an filed a motion in Bradford County Circuit Court seek­ing a stay of his sched­uled exe­cu­tion and request­ing an evi­den­tiary hear­ing to assess their client’s com­pe­ten­cy. Mr. Hutchinson has suf­fered from a delu­sion­al dis­or­der for decades, with a…

On April 24, 2025, Louisiana District Court Judge Alvin Sharp set aside Jimmie Duncan’s first-degree mur­der con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. Mr. Duncan was sen­tenced to death for the 1993 death of his girlfriend’s tod­dler large­ly based on faulty bite mark evi­dence. Judge Sharp, in a deci­sion that came after a September 2024 evi­den­tiary hear­ing, held that expert tes­ti­mo­ny pre­sent­ed dur­ing this hear­ing demon­strat­ed the bite mark analy­sis used against Mr. Duncan is​“no…

On April 11, 2025, Judge Colonel Matthew McCall ruled that con­fes­sions elicit­ed from Ammar al-Baluchi, accused of con­spir­ing in the September 11^th 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…

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…

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…