Oklahoma Federal Court Stays Execution of James Coddington
Dec 26, 2021
James Coddington, the last of the seven death-row prisoners scheduled to be put to death in Oklahoma’s five-month execution spree, has received a stay of execution.
On December 23, 2021, U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Friot, who is presiding over a challenge brought by Oklahoma death-row prisoners to the constitutionality of the state’s lethal-injection protocol, stayed Coddington’s March 10, 2022 execution date “until a final judgment on Mr. Coddington’s claims in this case has been…
After Second Non-Unanimous Jury Verdict, Paul Durousseau Re-Sentenced to Life in Prison in Florida
Dec 12, 2021
Florida death-row prisoner Paul Durousseau was re-sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole December 10, 2021, when a second capital sentencing jury reached a non-unanimous sentencing verdict.
Durousseau was convicted and sentenced to death in 2007 on charges that he had raped and murdered a 24-year-old woman in Jacksonville in 1999. The trial court imposed the death penalty in that case after the jury split 10 – 2 in favor of death. At the time, Florida was one of three states…
Second Ohio Prisoner Taken Off Death Row Under New Serious Mental Illness Law
Oct 22, 2021
A second Ohio death-row prisoner has been resentenced to life without parole under a new state law that makes individuals who were seriously mentally ill at the time of their crime ineligible for the death penalty.
Donald Ketterer, who was sentenced to death in Butler County in February 2004, was transferred from death row in Ohio’s Chillicothe Correctional Institution on October 6, 2021 to a state prison in Warren County after a Butler County Court of Common Pleas ruling in September that…
Ohio Supreme Court Rules Against Death-Row Prisoners in Administrative Challenge to Lethal-Injection Process
Oct 19, 2021
The Ohio Supreme Court has upheld the state’s execution process against a procedural challenge by two of the state’s death-row prisoners that sought to invalidate Ohio’s lethal-injection protocol. A unanimous Ohio Supreme Court ruled on October 19, 2021 that the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) did not violate state law when it adopted a lethal-injection protocol without going through the state’s formal rulemaking process.
In their suit, death-row prisoners Cleveland…
Oregon Appellate Court Grants New Trial to Death-Row Prisoner Jesse Johnson, Finding Trial Counsel Failed to Interview Witness Whose Testimony Could Potentially Exonerate Him
Oct 06, 2021
An Oregon appellate court has granted a new trial to death-row prisoner Jesse Johnson, finding his trial counsel ineffective for failing to interview a neighbor of the homicide victim whose eyewitness testimony could potentially exonerate him of the murder.
On October 6, 2021, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled that Johnson’s trial lawyers deficiently investigated the murder, failing to speak with Patricia Hubbard, a neighbor who lived directly across the street…
