Entries tagged with “Billy Joe Wardlow”
Executions
Executions Overview
,Feb 22, 2021
DPIC Analysis: U.S. Enters Longest Period in 40 Years Without Any State Carrying Out an Execution
The United States has entered the longest period in 40 years without any state carrying out an execution, an analysis of data in the Death Penalty Information Center execution database has found. On February 18, 2021, the U.S. reached 225 days since Texas executed Billy Wardlow on July 8, 2020, the last state execution conducted since the COVID-19 pandemic. That interval surpassed the 224 days between the September 25, 2007 execution of Michael Richard in Texas and the May 6, 2008 execution of…
Issues
Jun 23, 2020
Neuroscience Experts: Brain Science Shows Texas’ Use of Future Dangerousness to Sentence Those Under 21 to Death is Unreliable, Unconstitutional
Three professional organizations and eight practitioners in the fields of neuroscience and neuropsychology have joined a Texas death-row prisoner in challenging the constitutionality of the state’s use of “future dangerousness” findings to impose the death penalty on defendants who were younger than age 21 at the time of their offense. Their brief, filed in the U.S. Supreme Court on June 19, 2020, argues based on “[t]he great weight of scientific evidence” that predictions of whether an…
Executions
Upcoming Executions
,Apr 27, 2020
Texas Court Issues Nation’s Seventh Coronavirus Stay of Execution
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has stayed the May 6, 2020 execution of Edward Busby (pictured) for sixty days. Busby’s was the nation’s seventh execution postponed in the United States because of the coronavirus and the sixth in Texas. The stay, issued on April 27, marked the 26th execution date in the first half of 2020 to be halted. By contrast, five executions have been carried out with three others — two in Texas and one in Missouri — still pending before the end of June. The court’s…
Executions
Upcoming Executions
,Apr 06, 2020
News Brief — Fourth Texas Execution Put on Hold Because of Coronavirus Pandemic
NEWS (4/6/20) — Texas: A Texas trial court has rescheduled the execution of Billy Joe Wardlow from April 29, 2020 until July 8, 2020, the fourth execution in Texas that has been postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic. District Judge Angela Saucier granted a motion filed by the Morris County District Attorney’s office to reschedule the execution, rather than withdrawing the death warrant as a defense motion had requested. If the court had withdrawn the warrant, prosecutors would have been…
Issues
Dec 26, 2019
Billy Joe Wardlow Faces Execution in Texas Based on False Evidence of Future Dangerousness
Billy Joe Wardlow (pictured) was 18 years old, when he killed 82-year-old Carl Cole during a botched attempt to steal Cole’s car so that Wardlow and his girlfriend could pursue their fantasy of running away from their abusive homes in Carson, Texas to start a new life in Montana. Wardlow, who had no prior history of violence, has regretted his action ever since. In the cover story for the Winter 2020 issue of the magazine The American Scholar, Wardlow told veteran journalist and legal…