Entries tagged with “Maria DeLiberato”

Executions

Botched Executions

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Jun 22, 2026

States Continue to Push for Execution Secrecy Amid Legal Challenges

For the past 15 years, as state after state has passed exe­cu­tion secre­cy laws, the pub­lic has faced more ques­tions than answers about how elect­ed offi­cials use their tax­pay­er dol­lars for the most seri­ous pun­ish­ment. Every active death penal­ty state now has a law shield­ing key infor­ma­tion about exe­cu­tions, such as the source of lethal injec­tion drugs, the iden­ti­ties of exe­cu­tion team mem­bers, and whether those indi­vid­u­als have ade­quate train­ing. In 2026, as…

Research

May 17, 2024

Tennessee Authorizes Death Penalty for Child Sexual Assault in Direct Challenge to Supreme Court Precedent

On May 9, Governor Bill Lee of Tennessee signed a bill autho­riz­ing the death penal­ty for aggra­vat­ed rape of a child, fol­low­ing Florida’s pas­sage of a sim­i­lar law last year. Both laws con­tra­dict long­stand­ing Supreme Court prece­dent hold­ing the death penal­ty uncon­sti­tu­tion­al for non-homi­­cide crimes. Tennessee’s law takes effect on July 1. The state has had a death penal­ty mora­to­ri­um in place since May 2022 after Governor Lee learned that state offi­cials had failed to…

Issues

Jan 03, 2024

Overwhelming Percentage of Florida’s Hurst Resentencing Hearings End in Life Sentences

#### New Non-Unanimity Law Creates Chaos in Remaining Cases According to new research by the Death Penalty Information Center, 82% of Florida death-sen­­tenced pris­on­ers who com­plet­ed new sen­tenc­ing pro­ceed­ings under *Hurst v. Florida* (2016) have been resen­tenced to life in prison with­out parole. *Hurst* found Florida’s death penal­ty scheme uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, and the Florida Supreme Court sub­se­quent­ly held that new death sen­tences must be unan­i­mous, necessitating new…