DPIC MID-YEAR REVIEW: At Midpoint of 2019, Death Penalty Use Remains Near Historic Lows

Sentencing Alternatives

Aug 16, 2019

A life sen­tence recent­ly imposed in America’s dead­liest death-penal­ty coun­ty illus­trates the impact of Alabama’s 2017 repeal of its…

Intellectual Disability

Aug 15, 2019

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has stayed the exe­cu­tion of Texas d…

Costs

Aug 14, 2019

The high cost of meet­ing its oblig­a­tion to pro­vide con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly-man­dat­ed effec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion for indi­gent defen­dants in cap­i­tal cas­es con­tin­ues to gen­er­ate con­tro­ver­sy in Utah’s fourth largest coun­ty. With two cap­i­tal tri…

Religion

Aug 13, 2019

Sister Helen Prejean, the acclaimed author of Dead Man Walking, has writ­ten a new spir­i­tu­al mem­oir, River of Fire: My Spiritual Journey. The book, released August 13, 2019 by Random House pub­lish­ers, tells the st…

Mental Illness

Aug 12, 2019

Advocates from a vari­ety of back­grounds are urg­ing Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to stop the August 15, 2019 exe­cu­tion of Stephen West (pic­tured), say­ing that West did not com­mit the mur­der and urg­ing the gov­er­nor n…

Aug 12, 2019

NEWS — August 13: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has denied Dexter Johnson’s peti­tion for writ of cer­tio­rari and motion for stay of exe­cu­tion, clear­ing the way for Texas to exe­cute Johnson on August 14. The court refused to add…

Sentencing Alternatives

Aug 09, 2019

A Dallas, Texas, coun­ty com­mis­sion­er has called for a two-year halt on death-penal­ty tri­als, say­ing it would give the coun­ty time to study the finan­cial and eth­i­cal costs of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. On August 6, 2019, Commissio…

Conditions on Death Row

Aug 08, 2019

Oklahoma’s prac­tice of auto­mat­i­cal­ly hous­ing death-row pris­on­ers in soli­tary con­fine­ment and deny­ing them com­mu­nal reli­gious ser­vices is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and inhu­mane, a coali­tion of nation­al and local civ­il rights orga­ni­za­tions s…

Sentencing Data

Aug 07, 2019

Following the trends across most of the Midwest, the death penal­ty is wan­ing in Indiana. Capital pros­e­cu­tions are down, no jury has vot­ed for death since 2013, and the state is clos­ing in on its tenth con­sec­u­tive year with­out an e…

Innocence

Aug 06, 2019

A fed­er­al appeals court has cleared the way for a civ­il law­suit by two North Carolina death-row exonerees to advance to tri­al, reject­ing a claim that police offi­cers who alleged­ly vio­lat­ed their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights were immune f…