Entries by Hayley Bedard

On April 2, 2026, the Florida Supreme Court ordered new brief­ing that will extend past the war­rant dead­line for James Duckett’s exe­cu­tion. The order was issued in con­nec­tion with defense counsel’s request for fur­ther analy­sis of DNA evi­dence in Mr. Duckett’s case. Counsel for Mr. Duckett released a state­ment fol­low­ing the Court’s order, not­ing they​“are relieved that the court has inter­vened to halt this exe­cu­tion and allow time to con­sid­er Mr. Duckett’s request for the…

James Broadnax, a Texas death-sen­­­tenced pris­on­er, is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on April 30, 2026. He was con­vict­ed in 2009 by a Dallas County jury for the mur­ders of two music pro­duc­ers, Stephen Swan and Matthew Butler, who were shot and killed out­side their record­ing stu­dio in 2008. On March 19, 2026, a lit­tle more than a month before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion, attor­neys for Mr. Broadnax filed a new appeal and a sworn affi­davit from his code­fen­dant and cousin Demarius…

On March 12, 2026, a diverse group of voic­es filed ami­cus curi­ae briefs in sup­port of Charles Flores (pic­tured), a Texas death-sen­­­tenced pris­on­er, urg­ing the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case. Mr. Flores has spent more than 25 years on death row for a mur­der he main­tains he did not com­mit. His con­vic­tion relied on the tes­ti­mo­ny of a neigh­bor who iden­ti­fied him — for the first time, at tri­al — only after being hyp­no­tized by police. The briefs were filed by a…

On March 2, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review Alabama’s appeal of a rul­ing by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit that reversed and remand­ed Michael Sockwell’s case on the grounds that the tri­al pros­e­cu­tor vio­lat­ed his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights by inten­tion­al­ly remov­ing Black jurors. The Court’s denial of review clears a path for Mr. Sockwell to receive a new tri­al, some 36 years after a judge first sen­tenced him to death. A November 2025 federal…

The New York Times edi­to­r­i­al board pub­lished an arti­cle on March 13, 2026, con­demn­ing use of the death penal­ty in the coun­try as secre­tive, arbi­trary, and unjust. Relying heav­i­ly on research and data main­tained by the Death Penalty Information Center, the board describes the events of 2025, with its sharp increase in exe­cu­tions, as a​“dark new peri­od” in the nation’s his­to­ry. The board attrib­ut­es much of the surge to Florida, which alone car­ried out 19 executions in…

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…

DPI​’s​“What to Know” series exam­ines cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment from mul­ti­ple angles, one top­ic at a time. Each install­ment pro­vides essen­tial facts and data on spe­cif­ic aspects of the death penal­ty. Why it mat­ters: Although women rep­re­sent just 2% of death-sen­­­tenced pris­on­ers, they have unique issues and have often faced gen­der bias­es at every stage of their pros­e­cu­tion. — Fewer than 50 women are sen­tenced to death in the United States (October 2025). — Women…

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…

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…