Entries tagged with “Ledell Lee”

Executions

Executions Overview

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Botched Executions

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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…

Issues

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…

Issues

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…

Issues

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…

Issues

Executions Overview

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Lethal Injection

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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…

Issues

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…