Death Penalty News and Developments for October 7 — October 132019

NEWS — October 11: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has affirmed a Nevada dis­trict court’s deci­sion to uphold death-row pris­on­er Zane Floyds con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. Among oth­er issues, the court found that the pros­e­cu­tor’s mis­con­duct by telling the jury that Floyd’s killing of four peo­ple was the worst mas­sacre in the his­to­ry of Las Vegas” and elic­it­ing exten­sive uncon­sti­tu­tion­al tes­ti­mo­ny by the moth­er of one of the vic­tims rights about her son’s dif­fi­cult life and pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ences with vio­lent crime were harmless error.


NEWS — October 9: In a unan­i­mous opin­ion on direct appeal, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has upheld the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of James Calvert. Calvert was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death by a Smith County jury in October 2015. He may seek review by the U.S. Supreme Court of the fed­er­al con­sti­tu­tion­al issues raised in his direct appeal. After that, his cas­es advances to the state post-con­vic­tion appeal stage.


NEWS — October 8: The Shelby County, Tennessee District Attorney General and death-row pris­on­er Leonard Young reached a plea deal that has tak­en Young off the state’s death row. Young had been sen­tenced to death in 2002 for the mur­der of a University of Memphis stu­dent. His death sen­tence was lat­er over­turned because of the inef­fec­tive­ness of his lawyer in the penal­ty phase of his capital trial.