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News

Mar 27, 2024

Federal Appellate Court Ruling Requires Investigation into Jury Bias in Boston Marathon Case

On March 21, 2024, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the judge who presided over Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s (pic­tured) tri­al to inves­ti­gate his defense attor­neys’ claims of juror bias and deter­mine whether Mr. Tsarnaev’s death sen­tence should be over­turned because of this bias. In a 2 – 1 deci­sion, the 1st Circuit declined defense attor­ney requests to over­turn Mr. Tsarnaev’s death sen­tence for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in the April 2013 Boston Marathon bomb­ing but found that the tri­al judge fell short of what was con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly required” in his inves­ti­ga­tion of poten­tial jury…

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News

Mar 19, 2024

The 15th Anniversary of Death Penalty Repeal in New Mexico: Conversation with Cathy Ansheles and Viki Harrison

This week marks the 15th anniver­sary of the repeal of the death penal­ty in New Mexico. On March 18th, 2009, Governor Bill Richardson signed the repeal act (HB2085), end­ing the death penal­ty in the state. The bill came into force on July 1st, 2009. New Mexico fol­lowed New Jersey to become the sec­ond state in the 21st Century to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment through leg­isla­tive means.

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News

Jan 16, 2024

U.S. Department of Justice Authorizes First Federal Death Penalty Case for Payton Gendron, Teen Who Killed Ten Black People in 2022

On January 12, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it will seek a death sen­tence for Payton Gendron, the then-18-year-old who killed 10 Black peo­ple at a Tops super­mar­ket in Buffalo, New York in 2022. This is the first cap­i­tal case autho­rized by Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Biden Administration’s DOJ. The announce­ment came twen­ty months after the mass shoot­ing and eleven months after Mr. Gendron pled guilty to state first degree mur­der charges and was sen­tenced to mul­ti­ple sen­tences of life with­out parole. Although New…

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News

Jan 09, 2024

Federally Death-Sentenced Prisoners Allege that New Conditions of Confinement Contributed to Recent Prisoner Death

According to state­ments from sev­er­al fed­er­al death row pris­on­ers, the new adverse con­di­tions” on death row in Terre Haute, Indiana, con­tributed to the December 1, 2023 death of Nasih Khalil Ra’id. Fellow pris­on­ers say Mr. Ra’id, whose giv­en name at birth was Odell Corley, died by sui­cide. Prison offi­cials have not released the report from Mr. Ra’id’s autop­sy or com­ment­ed on the cause of his death.

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News

Nov 20, 2023

U.S. Army Overturns the Convictions of 110 Black Soldiers in the 1917 Camp Logan Rebellion to Redress the Unfair Trials that Resulted in the Execution of 19

On November 13, 2023, offi­cials announced that the U.S. Army had over­turned the con­vic­tions of 110 Black sol­diers of the 3rd Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, who were charged with mutiny in con­nec­tion with the racial vio­lence that occurred dur­ing the 1917 Camp Logan rebel­lion. Nineteen Black sol­diers were hanged fol­low­ing the court-mar­tial rul­ing on December 11, 1917, which was the largest exe­cu­tion of mil­i­tary sol­diers in his­to­ry. In her state­ment, Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth stat­ed, “…these sol­diers were wrong­ly treat­ed because of their race and were not given…

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News

Nov 10, 2023

A Veterans Day Review: Uneven Progress Understanding the Role of Military Service in Capital Crimes

In 2015, DPIC’s Battle Scars report brought world­wide atten­tion to the issue of mil­i­tary vet­er­ans on death row. DPIC found approx­i­mate­ly 300 vet­er­ans incar­cer­at­ed under a sen­tence of death, rep­re­sent­ing at least 10% of death row, and many more who had been exe­cut­ed. Since that report, research and under­stand­ing about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), trau­mat­ic brain injury (TBI), sub­stance use dis­or­ders, and men­tal ill­ness among vet­er­ans has only grown. A 2023 sur­vey of mem­bers of the Wounded Warrior Project found that 76% of ser­vice­mem­bers who incurred a men­tal or physical…

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News

Oct 23, 2023

In New Podcast, Rush to Kill Documents 6‑Month Federal Execution Spree Under President Donald Trump’s Administration

In July 2020, President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, under the direc­tion of Attorney General Bill Barr, resumed fed­er­al exe­cu­tions for the first time in 17 years. Over the course of the fol­low­ing six months, 13 fed­er­al death row pris­on­ers were exe­cut­ed. During those six months, the WFIU News team was grant­ed the oppor­tu­ni­ty to report on and wit­ness all 13 exe­cu­tions at United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute in Indiana. In the time since these exe­cu­tions, the WFIU News team col­lect­ed doc­u­ments and inter­viewed those con­nect­ed to every fed­er­al execution…

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News

Oct 06, 2023

New Details Emerge Surrounding Federal Executions Under Trump Administration

A recent arti­cle by Associated Press jour­nal­ist Michael Tarm reports new details about the thir­teen fed­er­al exe­cu­tions that took place in 20192020, includ­ing last-minute clemen­cy appeals for death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers like Brandon Bernard. Mr. Tarm wit­nessed ten of the exe­cu­tions and spoke with a num­ber of indi­vid­u­als who were involved in the process for his sto­ry. As a result of these inter­views, he says that the fuller pic­ture that has emerged shows that offi­cials cut cor­ners and relied on a pli­ant Supreme Court to get the exe­cu­tions done, even…

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News

Oct 03, 2023

Analysis Shows Supreme Court’s Changing View of Death Penalty Cases

A recent analy­sis by Bloomberg Law con­clud­ed that death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers have few­er avenues to relief at the Supreme Court than ever before. Bloomberg iden­ti­fied 270 emer­gency requests to stay exe­cu­tions since 2013 and found that the Court agreed to block an exe­cu­tion just 11 times. Since 2020, when the Court shift­ed to a 6 – 3 con­ser­v­a­tive major­i­ty fol­low­ing the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the appoint­ment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the Court has grant­ed just two stays of exe­cu­tion. One, for John Henry Ramirez, chal­lenged not the execution…

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News

Sep 28, 2023

Guantanamo Bay Judge Rules 9/​11 Capital Defendant Mentally Incompetent to Stand Trial

On September 21, 2023, a mil­i­tary judge in Guantanamo Bay ruled that Ramzi Bin al Shibh, one of five defen­dants in the 9/​11 case for whom the death penal­ty is being sought, is men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent to stand tri­al. Mr. Bin al Shibh, who has been detained for 21 years, will remain in cus­tody at Guantanamo as author­i­ties attempt to treat the post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der caused when he was forced to under­go enhanced inter­ro­ga­tions” by the U.S. government.

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News

Sep 07, 2023

9/​11 Victims’ Family Members, Members of Congress Urge Biden Administration to Abandon Plea Negotiations with Guantanamo Detainees

Family mem­bers of some of the vic­tims of 9/​11 have asked the Biden Administration to aban­don cur­rent plea nego­ti­a­tions with Guantánamo detainees that would remove the pos­si­bil­i­ty of death sen­tences for the men accused of plan­ning the 9/​11 ter­ror attacks. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his four co-defen­dants have been held for more than twen­ty years, first at CIA black sites where they were sub­ject to enhanced inter­ro­ga­tion tech­niques” and then at Guantánamo, but none has pro­ceed­ed to tri­al. The request came after fam­i­ly mem­bers were noti­fied by the Pentagon on August…

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