Publications & Testimony

The Tennessee Supreme Court has stayed the June 4, 2020 exe­cu­tion of death-row pris­on­er Oscar Franklin Smith (pic­tured) and resched­uled his exe­cu­tion for February 4, 2021. The order, issued on April 17, 2020, grant­ed a stay request filed by Smith’s lawyers, who had sought a post­pone­ment on the grounds that, because of the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, they had lost​“crit­i­cal time” for investigation…

A fed­er­al dis­trict court judge has approved a set­tle­ment of a class action chal­lenge to the con­di­tions of con­fine­ment on Pennsylvania’s death row that offi­cial­ly ends the state’s pol­i­cy of manda­to­ry incar­cer­a­tion of death-row pris­on­ers in permanent…

Beginning April 15, 2020, two tele­vi­sion series — one a new pro­gram from Netflix and the oth­er new episodes of a return­ing series from CNN — will high­light sto­ries of wrong­ful con­vic­tions, includ­ing some death-penalty…

In the April 2020 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Denver District Attorney Beth McCann (pic­tured) speaks with Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham about Colorado’s repeal of…

NEWS (4/​14/​20) — Ohio: Citing the con­tin­u­ing unavail­abil­i­ty of lethal-injec­­tion drugs to car­ry out exe­cu­tions in the state, Governor Mike DeWine has issued reprieves post­pon­ing the exe­cu­tions of three more Ohio death-row pris­on­ers. Romell Broom, John Hanna, and Douglas Coley had been sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on June 17, July 16, and August 12, 2020, respec­tive­ly. Their exe­cu­tions were rescheduled for…

NEWS (4/​14/​20) — Saudi Arabia: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has car­ried out its 800^th exe­cu­tion under the five-year reign of King Salman bin Abdulaziz, accord­ing to reports by the human rights groups European-Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) and Reprieve. The groups say the exe­cu­tion rate is near­ly dou­ble the rate in the five years pre­ced­ing Salman’s assump­tion of lead­er­ship in the Kingdom in 2015. From 2009 to 2014, Saudi Arabia car­ried out a total…

NEWS (4/​13/​20) — Colorado: Prosecutors in Colorado Springs have dropped the death penal­ty in their mur­der case against Marco Garcia-Bravo in the shoot­ing death of two high school stu­dents, the last remain­ing cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion in Colorado since the state abol­ished the death penal­ty on March 23. Parroting lan­guage used by Adams County pros­e­cu­tors when they dropped the death penal­ty against Dreion Dearing on March 30 in the…

As hos­pi­tals through­out the coun­try face short­ages of cru­cial med­ica­tions need­ed to treat patients with COVID-19, a group of lead­ing anes­the­si­ol­o­gists, phar­ma­cists and med­ical aca­d­e­mics is ask­ing cor­rec­tions offi­cials in death-penal­­ty states to turn over stock­piles of their exe­cu­tion drugs to hos­pi­tals so they can be used for therapeutic…

NEWS (4/​17/​20) — Nebraska: The Nebraska Supreme Court has upheld the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of Patrick Schroeder in the killing of his cell­mate at Tecumseh State Prison in 2017. Schroeder was serv­ing a life sen­tence for mur­der at the time. Because of prison over­crowd­ing, Schroeder and his cell­mate had been housed togeth­er in a 10-by-12 foot solitary confinement…

NEWS (4/​13/​20) — Washington, D.C.: U.S. Attorney General William Barr has issued a reg­u­la­to­ry order, retroac­tive to 1998, cer­ti­fy­ing the state of Arizona as an​“opt-in” state under the fed­er­al habeas cor­pus statute. The opt-in pro­vi­sion of the habeas cor­pus law rewards states that are deemed to pro­vide ade­quate state-court rep­re­sen­ta­tion of death-row pris­on­ers by short­en­ing the time peri­od for bring­ing fed­er­al chal­lenges to capital…