Entries tagged with “Execution Protocols”
Policy Issues
Human Rights
,Apr 11, 2023
NEW RESOURCES: Human Rights and the Death Penalty
The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), with the support of the Foreign Office of the Federal Government of Germany, recently undertook a project examining the U.S. death penalty through a human rights lens. DPIC has added a series of human rights pages to its website, reframing three aspects of the death penalty – race, conditions of confinement, and executions – in light of human rights norms and…
Executions
Executions Overview
,Botched Executions
,Lethal Injection
,Jan 17, 2023
Tennessee Gov. Says No Death Warrants Until Execution Protocol Problems Fixed
Tennessee will not resume executions until it fixes systemic problems with the administration of its execution protocol, Governor Bill Lee has announced. “It’s a very important issue that has to be done correctly,” Lee told reporters on January 5, 2023. “And we will take the time to fix the protocol and to make certain that we don’t move forward until everything’s in…
Executions
Executions Overview
,Lethal Injection
,Jun 23, 2022
Tennessee Executions Could Be on Hold for Years Following Independent Investigation, Anticipated Court Challenges
Tennessee executions could be on hold for years, as the state conducts an independent investigation into widespread non-compliance with its execution protocol and litigates the constitutionality of revisions expected to be made to its execution procedures. The anticipated delay, first reported by the Associated Press June 13, 2022, is a likely by-product of a decision by Governor Bill Lee to cancel all executions scheduled in the state for the remainder of…
Executions
Lethal Injection
,Jun 09, 2022
Federal Judge Upholds Oklahoma Lethal-Injection Protocol, Rejecting Prisoners’ Evidence of Torturous Executions
Judge Stephen Friot (pictured) of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma has ruled that Oklahoma’s lethal-injection protocol is constitutional. After holding a week-long hearing on the state’s three-drug protocol in February and March 2022, Judge Friot credited the testimony of state experts over the prisoners’ expert testimony on the likelihood that the protocol would result in severe pain. While attorneys for the 28 prisoners who…
Policy Issues
Secrecy
,Botched Executions
,Lethal Injection
,Jun 03, 2022
Court Documents Reveal Widespread Irregularities in Tennessee Executions
Court records from a lawsuit brought by Tennessee death-row prisoners have revealed widespread irregularities in the state’s execution…
Executions
Lethal Injection
,Jun 01, 2022
Autopsies Show Excess Fluid in Lungs of All Four Prisoners Put to Death in Oklahoma Execution Spree
Autopsies of the four men executed by Oklahoma between October 2021 and February 2022 show that all four prisoners had excess fluid in their lungs, giving additional credence to death-row prisoners’ claims that Oklahoma’s lethal-injection process will subject them to an unconstitutionally torturous…
Policy Issues
Secrecy
,New Voices
,Executions Overview
,May 20, 2022
Former South Carolina Death-Row Doctor: “I’m Supposed to be Saving People, Not Killing People”
After 37 years of silence, a South Carolina prison doctor who was in the execution chamber when eight prisoners it was his duty to treat were put to death has for the first time publicly discussed his conflicting…
Policy Issues
Innocence
,Upcoming Executions
,Lethal Injection
,Apr 13, 2022
Tennessee Trial Court Denies Motion to Halt Upcoming Execution Based on New DNA Evidence
A Nashville trial judge has denied a Tennessee death-row prisoner’s motion to reopen his case and halt his scheduled April 21, 2022 execution in light of new DNA…
Executions
Lethal Injection
,Mar 10, 2022
Evidence of ‘Torturous’ Fluid in the Lungs, Drug Mislabeling Highlight Federal Trial on Constitutionality of Oklahoma Lethal-Injection Protocol
A six-day federal trial on the constitutionality of Oklahoma’s lethal-injection protocol has concluded, with medical experts for the state’s death-row prisoners citing autopsy and eyewitness evidence to call the process “torturous” and doctors for the state denying that prisoners suffered as they were being put to…
Executions
Executions Overview
,Feb 18, 2022
Oklahoma County Becomes Nation’s Third Most Prolific County Executioner as State Puts Intellectually Impaired Teen Offender to Death
When Oklahoma executed Gilbert Postelle on February 17, 2022, it came with a dubious distinction. The intellectually impaired man who was 18 years old at the time of his offense became the 44th person prosecuted in Oklahoma County to be put to death since executions resumed in the U.S. in 1977. His death made the county the nation’s third-most prolific county executioner over the past half-century, tied with Tarrant and Bexar counties in…
Executions
Lethal Injection
,Feb 16, 2022
Deadline to Seek Execution of Zane Floyd Before Lethal-Injection Drugs Expire Passes in Nevada
Nevada prosecutors have failed to meet a deadline to obtain a death warrant to execute Zane Floyd before its supply of a key lethal-injection drug expires, indefinitely extending the near 16-year pause between executions in the…
Executions
Botched Executions
,Lethal Injection
,Feb 14, 2022
Autopsy Shows John Grant Suffered Pulmonary Edema and Intramuscular Hemorrhage and Aspirated Vomit During Oklahoma Execution
Autopsy results for an Oklahoma death-row prisoner whose execution state officials claimed “was carried out … without complication” have confirmed eyewitness reports that John Grant likely suffered a torturous death. The autopsy, conducted by Tulsa Medical Examiner Jeremy Shelton, M.D., the morning after Grant was executed on October 28, 2021, revealed that Grant suffered pulmonary edema and intramuscular hemorrhaging, and aspirated on his vomit as a result…
Executions
Lethal Injection
,Feb 11, 2022
Nevada Execution Personnel Back Out of Participation After Judge Inquires About Credentials
At least three Nevada execution personnel backed out of participating in Zane Floyd’s (pictured, right) execution after a U.S. district judge asked about their education and training. The personnel, including a doctor and two emergency medical technicians, declined to participate after U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware II asked the state to provide him with their credential information. Another doctor was excluded by the Nevada Department of Corrections…
Executions
Lethal Injection
,Feb 10, 2022
Oklahoma is Paying Execution Doctor $15,000 Plus Training Fees for Each Execution
Oklahoma is paying $15,000 per execution, plus $1,000 for each day of training, to an unnamed doctor to participate in the process of putting state prisoners to death. Under the agreement, the doctor stood to receive an estimated $130,000 over the course of the 19-week-period between October 28, 2021 and March 10, 2022 in which the state had scheduled the executions of seven…
Facts & Research
Clemency
,Upcoming Executions
,Botched Executions
,Lethal Injection
,Dec 07, 2021
Oklahoma Executes Bigler Stouffer After Governor Rejects Board Recommendation for Clemency, Federal Courts Deny Stay
Oklahoma executed Bigler Jobe Stouffer II (pictured, at his clemency hearing) on December 9, 2021, after Governor Kevin Stitt rejecting a pardons board recommendation to commute his sentence to life without parole and the federal courts denied his applications to stay his execution. Stouffer, 79, was the oldest prisoner put to death in Oklahoma. It was the eleventh and final execution of…
Executions
Lethal Injection
,Nov 09, 2021
Nevada Prosecutors Ask Federal Judge to Expedite Decision on Execution Protocol, Citing Looming Expiration Date of Questionably Obtained Drugs
Nevada prosecutors have asked a federal judge to expedite a decision on the constitutionality of the state’s execution process, saying accelerated review is necessary if the state is to execute Zane Floyd before its supply of a questionably obtained lethal-injection drug expires on February 28,…
Executions
Botched Executions
,Lethal Injection
,Oct 29, 2021
Eyewitnesses Report John Grant Experienced Repeated ‘Full-Body Convulsions’ and Vomited During Execution; Oklahoma Says Execution was Carried Out ‘Without Complication’
Oklahoma’s legacy of botched executions has continued to grow, as media witnesses to the October 28, 2021 execution of John Grant (pictured) reported that Grant suffered repeated convulsions and vomited over a nearly 15-minute period after he was administered the controversial execution drug…
Facts & Research
United States Supreme Court
,Executions Overview
,Botched Executions
,Lethal Injection
,Oct 28, 2021
Oklahoma Executes John Grant After Supreme Court Vacates Stay; Execution Proceeds Despite Pending Trial on Constitutionality of State’s Lethal-Injection Process
Within hours of a partisan vote in the United States Supreme Court lifting an appeals court stay, Oklahoma executed John Grant on October 28, 2021, ending a six-year hiatus brought on by a series of execution mishaps in 2014 and 2015. Eyewitnesses reported that Grant convulsed more than two dozen times and vomited as Oklahoma put him to death with a controversial three-drug execution cocktail whose constitutionality is the subject of a…
Executions
Lethal Injection
,Oct 19, 2021
Ohio Supreme Court Rules Against Death-Row Prisoners in Administrative Challenge to Lethal-Injection Process
The Ohio Supreme Court has upheld the state’s execution process against a procedural challenge by two of the state’s death-row prisoners that sought to invalidate Ohio’s lethal-injection protocol. A unanimous Ohio Supreme Court ruled on October 19, 2021 that the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) did not violate state law when it adopted a lethal-injection protocol without going through the state’s formal rulemaking…
Executions
Lethal Injection
,Aug 13, 2021
Oklahoma Federal Court Rules that Death-Row Prisoners’ Challenge to State’s Lethal Injection Protocol May Proceed to Trial
An Oklahoma federal judge has ordered a trial in a suit filed by the state’s death-row prisoners challenging the constitutionality of Oklahoma’s three-drug lethal-injection process. Judge Stephen Friot of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma ruled on August 11, 2021 that the suit, which alleges that Oklahoma’s execution protocol violates the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment, may proceed to trial. Judge Friot denied several other…
Executions
Executions Overview
,Federal Death Penalty
,Jul 06, 2021
Department of Justice Formally Pauses Federal Executions to Review Trump Death-Penalty Regulations
In a memorandum that left to Congress the task of addressing systemic questions of arbitrariness, racial discrimination, and wrongful convictions affecting the administration of the federal death penalty, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland (pictured) issued a directive formally pausing federal executions while the Department of Justice (DOJ) undertakes a review of executive branch policies adopted in the last two years of the Trump…
Policy Issues
Mental Illness
,Executions Overview
,Jun 30, 2021
Texas Executes John Hummel, Former Marine with Service-Related Trauma Whose Trial Lawyer Now Works for Prosecutor Who is Trying to Execute Him
Texas executed John Hummel on June 30, 2021, an honorably discharged former Marine with service-related trauma whose trial lawyer now works for the prosecutor who was trying to execute…
Executions
Lethal Injection
,Jun 21, 2021
Nevada Proposes to Execute Zane Floyd with Untried Drug Combination
The Nevada Department of Corrections (NVDOC) intends to execute death-row prisoner Zane Floyd with a three- or four-drug combination that has never been used before to put a prisoner to death. In a proposed execution protocol released on June 10, 2021, NVDOC said its execution cocktail would be drawn from six possible drugs, depending upon…
Policy Issues
Representation
,United States Supreme Court
,Lethal Injection
,Apr 05, 2021
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of March 29, 2021
NEWS (3/31/21) — Florida: After finding that Florida death-row prisoner William Greg Thomas was entitled to present an untimely habeas corpus petition because his prior lawyer had abandoned him, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reviewed but denied Thomas’ challenge to his conviction and death sentence. The court held that Thomas was entitled to equitable tolling of the habeas corpus statute of limitations but ruled that his ineffective assistance claims were…
Executions
Lethal Injection
,Mar 11, 2021
Civil Rights Groups Accuse California District Attorneys of Unlawfully Interfering in Death Penalty Lawsuit
Five civil rights organizations have asked a California appeals court to block the efforts of three county district attorneys to lift stays of execution agreed to by the state as part of a federal-court settlement of death-row prisoners’ challenge to California’s lethal-injection protocol. [UPDATE: On March 9, 2021, the First District Court of Appeals dismissed the groups’…
Policy Issues
Mental Illness
,Women
,Federal Death Penalty
,Jan 13, 2021
Supreme Court Vacates Stays of Execution, Paves Way for Late-Night Execution of Lisa Montgomery
After a series of rulings by the United States Supreme Court summarily vacated two stays of execution and denied attempts to reinstate two others, the federal government executed death row prisoner Lisa Montgomery (pictured) on January 13, 2021. Montgomery, the only woman on federal death row, was the first woman executed by the federal government in more than 67 years, the first person executed in the U.S. in 2021, and the 11th prisoner put to death in a…
Executions
Upcoming Executions
,Federal Death Penalty
,Dec 28, 2020
District Court Voids Lisa Montgomery Execution Date; Federal Prosecutors Appeal
Saying the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) acted unlawfully in resetting Lisa Montgomery’s execution for January 12, 2021, a federal judge in Washington has for a second time blocked efforts by the U.S. Department of Justice to put to death the only woman on federal death row. In an order issued late in the day on December 24, 2020, U.S. District Court Judge Randolph D. Moss agreed with Montgomery’s lawyers that the BOP lacked legal authority to reschedule…
Policy Issues
Secrecy
,Lethal Injection
,Dec 02, 2020
Citing State’s Lack of Execution Drugs, South Carolina Supreme Court Stays Richard Moore’s Execution
Saying that the state lacked the ability to carry out a lethal injection, the South Carolina Supreme Court has stayed the scheduled December 4, 2020 execution of Richard Moore (pictured). With no state executions scheduled for the remainder of the year, the stay means that states will carry out fewer executions in 2020 than in any year since…
Policy Issues
Secrecy
,Upcoming Executions
,Methods of Execution
,Nov 20, 2020
South Carolina Seeks to Execute Richard Moore December 4, But Won’t Say How
South Carolina has issued a death warrant to execute Richard Moore (pictured) on December 4, 2020, but, his lawyers say, the state has refused to tell him how it intends to carry it…
Executions
Lethal Injection
,Oct 16, 2020
Ohio Supreme Court to Review Validity of State’s Execution Protocol
A divided Ohio Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeals of two death-row prisoners who are challenging the legality of the state’s execution protocol. By votes of 4 – 3, the court on October 13, 2020 accepted for review appeals by Cleveland Jackson (pictured) and James O’Neal asserting that Ohio’s execution protocol is invalid because the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) adopted it in violation of state regulatory…
Facts & Research
United States Supreme Court
,Lethal Injection
,Federal Death Penalty
,Oct 12, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of October 5, 2020
NEWS (10/5/20) — Washington, D.C.: The 2020 – 2021 U.S. Supreme Court term opened on October 5 with the Court declining to review challenges to more than 30 death-penalty court…
Executions
Methods of Execution
,Lethal Injection
,Sep 25, 2020
NPR Investigation of Lethal-Injection Autopsies Finds Executed Prisoners Experience Sensations of Suffocation and Drowning
A new National Public Radio (NPR) analysis of more than 200 autopsies of death-row prisoners executed by lethal injection has found that 84% of those executed showed evidence of pulmonary edema, a condition in which a person’s lungs fill with fluid that creates the feeling of suffocation or drowning that experts have likened to…
Executions
Federal Death Penalty
,Sep 23, 2020
Federal Government Conducts Sixth and Seventh Executions Amid Continuing Litigation Over COVID-19 and the Legality of Its Execution Protocol
The federal government conducted its sixth and seventh executions in ten weeks on September 22 and 24, putting William Emmett LeCroy (pictured) and Christopher Vialva to death amid continuing challenges to the federal execution protocol and to carrying out executions during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the federal appeal courts set aside LeCroy’s execution challenges, Vialva’s lawsuit challenging the legality of the federal execution protocol remained pending in…
Policy Issues
Costs
,Federal Death Penalty
,Aug 24, 2020
ACLU Lawsuit Seeks Information on Cost and Public Health Risks of Federal Executions
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and American Civil Liberties Foundation have filed a lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) seeking a court order requiring the BOP to disclose how much the federal government’s resumption of federal executions is costing taxpayers and what steps the government has undertaken to assess and address the COVID-19 public health risks created by the executions. “As the nation faces both dire public health and economic crises,”…
Facts & Research
Recent Legislative Activity
,Aug 18, 2020
Nebraska Legislature Passes, Governor Vetoes Execution Transparency Bill
Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts has vetoed a bill that would have increased transparency in the state’s execution process. LB 238, which passed the state’s unicameral legislature on August 13, 2020 by a vote of 27 – 10 with 12 members present but not voting, would have allowed witnesses to see the execution from the moment the prisoner enters the death chamber until the prisoner is declared dead or the execution is…
Executions
Lethal Injection
,Aug 06, 2020
Execution Lawsuits Settle in Arizona and California, as Prisoners Renew Lethal-Injection Protocol Challenge in Oklahoma
Long-running execution lawsuits have settled in Arizona and California, as a renewed challenge to the state’s revised lethal-injection protocol has ramped up in…
Facts & Research
United States Supreme Court
,Federal Death Penalty
,Jul 17, 2020
Federal Government Carries Out Third Execution in One Week, As Challenges to Execution Protocol Fail
The United States government carried out its third execution in four days on July 17, 2020, executing Dustin Honken (pictured). The week’s executions doubled the number of prisoners the government has put to death since Congress reauthorized the federal death penalty in…
Facts & Research
United States Supreme Court
,Lethal Injection
,Federal Death Penalty
,Jun 25, 2020
Regulatory Experts Ask Supreme Court to Overturn Ruling Lifting Injunction on Federal Executions
A group of 15 administrative law experts have filed an amicus curiae brief in support of death-row prisoners seeking U.S. Supreme Court review of a challenge to the federal government’s proposed execution protocol. The brief was filed June 19, 2020 in Roane v. Barr, a case brought by federal death-row prisoners asking the Court to overturn an appellate court’s ruling that lifted an injunction on federal executions. According to the amicus brief, “This case presents a…
Policy Issues
Representation
,United States Supreme Court
,Lethal Injection
,Federal Death Penalty
,Jun 19, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of June 15, 2020
NEWS (6/19/20) — California: In one of the few capital trials to move forward during the COVID-19 pandemic, a San Jose jury acquitted Manuel Anthony Lopez of charges that he had raped and murdered his girlfriend’s two-year-old son. Lopez, who had been jailed four years awaiting trial, had consistently professed his innocence, and news reports said his lead defense counsel, Santa Clara County deputy public defender Michael Ogul, believed so strongly in Lopez’s innocence that…
Facts & Research
Religion
,Upcoming Executions
,Jun 17, 2020
News Brief — U.S. Supreme Court Stays Execution of Ruben Gutierrez in Texas
NEWS (6/16/20) — Washington, D.C.: The U.S. Supreme Court has stayed the execution of Ruben Gutierrez over concerns about the refusal by the state of Texas to allow a chaplain to accompany Gutierrez in the execution chamber.
Policy Issues
Mental Illness
,Representation
,Victims' Families
,Upcoming Executions
,Federal Death Penalty
,Jun 16, 2020
With Litigation Pending in U.S. Supreme Court, Federal Government Issues Four Death Warrants
With a petition for review pending before the U.S. Supreme Court on the legality and constitutionality of the federal execution protocol, U.S. Attorney General William Barr on June 15, 2020 set execution dates for four federal death-row prisoners, including three who are involved in the pending case. The warrants scheduled three executions over a five-day period in July and a fourth execution in late August. No federal executions have been carried out since 2003, and the five…
Executions
Executions Overview
,Lethal Injection
,Federal Death Penalty
,Apr 07, 2020
U.S. Court of Appeals Lifts Injunction on Federal Executions, Returns Case to Lower Court for Further Litigation
A badly divided federal court of appeals has lifted a court order that had prevented the federal government from resuming executions after a hiatus of more than 16…
Policy Issues
Intellectual Disability
,Lethal Injection
,Jul 05, 2019
Kentucky Trial Court Again Strikes Down State’s Execution Protocol
A Kentucky trial court has issued an order declaring the Commonwealth’s execution protocol unconstitutional. It was the third time in a decade the state courts have ruled in favor of death-row prisoners in their challenges to the protocol. The July 2, 2019 ruling by Franklin Circuit Court Judge Phillip J. Shepherd came in response to a claim brought by the state’s death-row prisoners that Kentucky’s execution regulations could allow Kentucky to…
Policy Issues
Arbitrariness
,Executions Overview
,Methods of Execution
,Lethal Injection
,Aug 02, 2013
LETHAL INJECTION: Shortage of Drugs Leaves Texas Unsure About Future Executions
On August 1, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice announced its remaining supply of pentobarbital, used for lethal injections, expires in September, and it is unsure where to obtain more. The drug’s manufacturer, Lundbeck, Inc., has barred distribution to states intending to use the drug in…