Entries tagged with “Ledell Lee”
Executions
Executions Overview
,Botched Executions
,Apr 27, 2022
Arkansas Marks Five Years Since End of 2017 Execution Spree
On April 27, 2017, Kenneth Williams convulsed violently as he died on the gurney, the fourth prisoner put to death in an eleven-day execution spree in which Arkansas intended to execute eight men before its supply of execution drugs expired. It has not executed anyone…
Policy Issues
Innocence
,Apr 19, 2017
Arkansas Prisoners, Asserting Their Innocence, File Requests for DNA Testing
Two Arkansas death-row prisoners who are scheduled be executed on April 20 have asked the Arkansas courts to stay their executions to permit DNA testing in their cases. Stacey Johnson (pictured, l.) and Ledell Lee (pictured, r.) both say they did not commit the crimes for which they were sentenced to death, and both say that DNA testing methods not available at the time of their trials could…
Policy Issues
Executions Overview
,Lethal Injection
,Dec 08, 2017
Background on Arkansas April 2017 Executions
Eight executions were scheduled in Arkansas from April 17 – 27, 2017. The state scheduled two executions per day on four days during that period. The men scheduled for execution were (top row, from left to right) Bruce Ward, Marcel Williams, Jason McGehee, and Kenneth Williams; (bottom row, from left to right) Stacey Johnson, Ledell Lee, Don Davis, and Jack Jones. The state carried out four executions during this…
Policy Issues
Innocence
,May 11, 2021
Forensic Testing Casts New Doubt on Guilt of Ledell Lee, Executed in Arkansas in 2017
Posthumous forensic testing of evidence in the case of Ledell Lee (pictured), who was executed in Arkansas in 2017, has found DNA from an unidentified male on a bloody club used to kill Debra Reese 29 years ago and on a blood-soaked shirt that was wrapped around the weapon. The DNA results, released by the Innocence Project and the ACLU on April 30, 2021, raise additional troubling questions about Lee’s…
Policy Issues
Innocence
,Jan 29, 2020
Lawsuit Seeks DNA and Fingerprint Testing that Could Show Arkansas Executed an Innocent Man
In its unprecedented rush to execute eight prisoners over an eleven-day period in April 2017, Arkansas may have executed an innocent man. Civil rights and legal reform organizations filed a state Freedom of Information Act lawsuit on January 23, 2020 on behalf of the brother of Ledell Lee (pictured), a man Arkansas executed on April 20, 2017. The lawsuit argues that DNA and fingerprint evidence that courts blocked the defense from testing in the days leading…
Policy Issues
Innocence
,Feb 07, 2020
States Continue to Oppose DNA Testing in Death Penalty Appeals, Attorneys Ask Why Don’t They Want to Learn the Truth?
The last three men scheduled for execution in Georgia said they did not commit the killing and that DNA testing that was not available at the time of trial could prove it. In two of the cases, victim family members supported the request for testing. Prosecutors opposed the requests, and the courts refused to allow the testing. Two of the three men were executed, with doubts still swirling as to their…