Entries tagged with “Mitigating Evidence”
Mar 20, 2026
Elizabeth Vartkessian on Mitigation and “The Deserving”
In the March 2026 episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Elizabeth Vartkessian (pictured), the executive director of Advancing Real Change (ARC), a national non-profit that works to provide mitigation investigation services and training that ensure the full life histories of individuals facing extreme sentences are presented to judges and juries. Ms. Vartkessian is a mitigation specialist who has spent decades investigating the lives and…
Issues
Feb 01, 2023
Texas Death Row Prisoner Commits Suicide
On January 21, 2023, Texas death row prisoner Terence Andrus hanged himself at the age of 34, a little more than 6 months after the U.S. Supreme Court denied review of his case for a second time. His lawyer, Gretchen Sween, told the Los Angeles Times that “he’d been careening toward the abyss,” since their decision. “He was broken.” In 2008, at the age of 20, Andrus killed two people during an attempted carjacking while high on PCP-laced marijuana. He was sentenced to death in 2012 by a jury…
Research
Upcoming Executions
,Aug 05, 2022
Oklahoma Board of Pardons and Parole Recommends Clemency for James Coddington
The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board has recommended clemency for James Coddington (pictured at his clemency hearing), the first of 25 death-row prisoners scheduled to be executed in Oklahoma between August 2022 and December 2024. In a 3 – 2 vote on August 3, 2022, the Board recommended that Coddington’s death sentence be reduced to life without the possibility of parole. Gubernatorial appointee Ed Konieczny, Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals appointee Larry Morris, and Oklahoma Supreme Court…
Issues
Jul 28, 2022
Federal Appeals Court Finds South Carolina Judge Ignored Uncontested Evidence of Mental Illness, Reverses Death Sentence
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has overturned a South Carolina death-row prisoner’s death sentence after finding that the sentencing judge in his case had ignored uncontested evidence of the defendant’s mental illness and history of severe childhood abuse and neglect. In a 2 – 1 ruling on July 26, 2022, a panel of the Fourth Circuit vacated the death sentence imposed on Quincy Allen by Richland County Circuit Court Judge G. Thomas Cooper in March 2005 for the murders…
Issues
Jun 14, 2022
After Initially Reversing Decision, Supreme Court Refuses to Review Texas Case of Gross Attorney Ineffectiveness a Second Time
The United States Supreme Court has declined to review a case in which the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) flouted a previous Supreme Court ruling by denying relief to a death-row prisoner a second time after the Court had returned the case with directions to further consider defense counsel’s failure to investigate and present a “tidal wave” of available mitigating evidence in the penalty phase of his capital trial. The Court’s liberal justices dissented from the conservative…
Issues
Federal Death Penalty
,Apr 04, 2022
New DPIC Podcast: Prof. Meredith Rountree on What Influences Death Penalty Jurors’ Moral Decision Making
In the March 2022 episode of Discussions With DPIC, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law Senior Lecturer Meredith Rountree speaks with Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham about her study of the types of evidence that influence juror decision-making at the sentencing stage of capital cases. Rountree and her co-author Dr. Mary Rose of the University of Texas, reviewed and analyzed 176 verdict forms completed by juries in federal death penalty cases, focusing on three…
Issues
Victims' Families
,Federal Death Penalty
,Mar 07, 2022
Supreme Court Overturns Appeals Court Decision Reversing Death Sentence in Boston Marathon Bombing
The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned a federal appeals court decision that had reversed the death sentences imposed on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for his role in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings that killed three people and injured more than 250 others. In a 6 – 3 decision authored by Justice Clarence Thomas and joined by all members of the Court’s conservative supermajority, the justices reinstated Tsarnaev’s death sentences and remanded the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit to…
Issues
Feb 14, 2022
Federal Court Overturns Death Sentence of Alabama Death-Row Prisoner Whose Abandonment by Counsel Led to Supreme Court Ruling
A federal district court has overturned the death sentence of an Alabama death-row prisoner whose abandonment by his state post-conviction counsel led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the right of access to federal habeas corpus review. On January 27, 2022, Judge Karon O. Bowdre of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama overturned Cory Maples’ death sentence, holding that his trial counsel had provided prejudicially deficient representation during the penalty…
Issues
Jan 26, 2022
Kansas Supreme Court Rules that Death Penalty Does Not Violate State Constitution’s ‘Inalienable’ Right to Life
The Kansas Supreme Court has upheld the state’s death penalty against two death-row prisoners’ challenges that capital punishment violates the “inalienable” right to life enshrined in the Kansas state constitution. In separate decisions rendered in the cases of brothers Reginald and Jonathan Carr on January 21, 2022, the court held that the right to life guaranteed in Section 1 of the Kansas Constitution’s Bill of Rights “is not absolute or nonforfeitable” and is forfeited “once a defendant…
Issues
Jan 05, 2022
Former U.S. Solicitor General: Supreme Court Must ‘Uphold the Rule of Law’ that Texas Courts Ignored in Death Penalty Case
A former conservative federal judge and U.S. Solicitor General has called on the United States Supreme Court to vacate a ruling by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) that allowed a Texas death sentence to stand in the face of an earlier Supreme Court ruling that defense counsel had unreasonably failed to present a “tidal wave” of “compelling mitigating evidence.” Kenneth W. Starr (pictured), who was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by…
Issues
Executions Overview
,Dec 17, 2021
“Right Too Soon” Study: One in Seven Prisoners Put to Death in U.S. Had Legal Issues that Make Their Executions Unconstitutional
At least one in seven death-row prisoners put to death in the United States since executions resumed in 1977 had legal claims in their cases that would render their executions unconstitutional, a new Cornell University Law School study shows. The study, Dead Right: A Cautionary Capital Punishment Tale, by Cornell Law School professors Joseph Margulies, John Blume, and Sheri Johnson (pictured, left to right) was published in the Fall 2021 issue of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review. The…
Issues
Dec 06, 2021
Advocacy Groups Call on Supreme Court to Summarily Reverse Texas Death-Penalty Decision that Flouted Earlier Court Guidance
Organizations advocating for the rights of abused children and those with mental illness and for fair process are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to, for a second time, summarily reverse a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) decision that upheld the death sentence imposed on Terence Andrus (pictured) despite defense counsel’s failure to investigate and present a “tidal wave” of available mitigating evidence in the penalty phase of his capital trial. In June 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court…
Death Row
Conditions on Death Row
,Women
,Nov 17, 2021
Nebraska Narrowly Avoids Sending First-Ever Woman to Death Row as 3‑Judge Panel Splits on Sentence for Bailey Boswell
Nebraska, which had no plans for housing a female death-row prisoner, has narrowly avoided having to address that failure, as a divided three-judge panel on November 8, 2021 sentenced Bailey Boswell to life in prison without possibility of parole. Two members of the panel, Saline County District Judge Vicky Johnson and Lancaster County District Judge Darla Ideus, voted for death. However, Nebraska law requires a unanimous vote for the death penalty to be imposed, and Douglas County District…
Research
Federal Death Penalty
,Oct 14, 2021
Supreme Court Hears Argument on Department of Justice Efforts to Reinstate Death Penalty in Boston Marathon Bombing Case
A United States Supreme Court sharply divided along ideological lines heard oral argument October 13, 2021 on the Department of Justice’s appeal of a federal circuit court’s ruling overturning the death sentences imposed on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for his convictions in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Veteran court watchers reported that the six conservative justices seemed poised to overturn the federal appeal court’s grant of a new penalty phase hearing to Tsarnaev and to return the case to the…
Issues
Sep 22, 2021
Pennsylvania Court Denies Post-Conviction Relief to Death-Row Prisoner Albert Reid, Remands on Competency Issue
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has, with one exception, affirmed a trial court ruling denying death-row prisoner Albert Reid’s post-conviction challenge to his conviction and death sentence. In a 5 – 2 decision issued on September 22, 2021, the court upheld the decision of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas that dismissed Reid’s post-conviction petition. The court remanded the case on the question of Reid’s competency to stand trial and assist in his defense, saying the trial court had not…
Issues
Jun 28, 2021
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of June 21, 2021
NEWS (6/25/21) — Alabama: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has affirmed an Alabama federal district court decision dismissing James Barber’s habeas corpus challenge to his conviction and death sentence. In an unsigned, unpublished opinion, the appeals court denied Barber’s claim that his lawyers provided ineffective representation in the penalty phase of his capital trial by failing to investigate and present mitigating evidence to the jury. NEWS (6/23 – 24/21) — Florida…
Issues
May 10, 2021
Federal Court Reverses Death Sentence Imposed on Defendant Represented By Georgia Lawyer With History of Ineffectiveness and Racial Bias
A federal appeals court has reversed the death sentence of an African-American Georgia death-row prisoner who was represented at trial by a defense lawyer notorious for his history of substandard representation and racial bias in death-penalty cases. On April 27, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed the ruling of a federal district court and overturned the death sentence imposed on Willie James Pye (pictured). In a unanimous but unpublished opinion, the appeals court…
Issues
Native Americans
,May 03, 2021
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of April 26, 2021
NEWS (4/29/21) — Oklahoma: The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has vacated the convictions and death sentences of two more death-row prisoners who, the court found, had committed their offenses against Native Americans on tribal lands. Applying the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark tribal sovereignty ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma, the court found that the murders for which Benjamin Robert Cole Sr. and James Chandler Ryder had been convicted occurred in “Indian country” within the historical…
Issues
Time on Death Row
,Apr 19, 2021
Texas Appeals Court Overturns Death Sentence of Nation’s Longest Serving Death-Row Prisoner
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has overturned the death sentence of the nation’s longest-serving death-row prisoner, 45 years after he was first sent to death row. In an unpublished opinion issued on April 14, 2021, the TCCA held that Raymond Riles (pictured), originally sentenced to death by a Harris County jury on December 11, 1975, is entitled to a new sentencing hearing. The court ruled that Riles had been unconstitutionally sentenced to death in his 1978 retrial when the trial…
Issues
Religion
,Women
,Feb 15, 2021
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of February 8, 2021
NEWS (2/11/21) — Alabama: In a splintered vote with three conservative justices noting their dissents, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the Alabama Attorney General’s application to vacate a federal appeals court injunction that had halted that night’s scheduled execution of Willie B. Smith III unless the state permitted his pastor to be present in the death chamber to provide religious comfort during his execution. In a second night-of-execution order, the Court lifted a stay of execution based…
Issues
Time on Death Row
,Feb 08, 2021
Harris County DA Seeks to Vacate Sentence for Nation’s Longest-Serving Death-Row Prisoner
The Harris County District Attorney’s office has asked the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to overturn the death sentence imposed on Raymond Riles (pictured), the nation’s longest-serving death-row prisoner. Riles, who has a significant history of mental illness that prosecutors and defense lawyers alike have long agreed make him incompetent to be executed, was convicted and sentenced to death 45 years ago, on February 4, 1976. When Charles Foster, who was sentenced to death in Florida in…
Issues
Dec 21, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of December 14, 2020
NEWS (12/18/20) — Texas: The Texas Supreme Court has overturned a ruling by the state’s comptroller that had denied death-row exoneree Alfred Dewayne Brown’s application for compensation and directed the comptroller to pay Brown the compensation mandated by state law. Brown was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in 2005. Following his exoneration, he applied for compensation under Texas’ Tim Cole Act, but his application was denied because he had not been adjudicated “actually innocent”…
Issues
Conditions on Death Row
,Nov 02, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of October 26, 2020
NEWS (10/30/20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court has upheld the conviction and death sentence of Jonathan Lawrence in an opinion that removed yet another appellate safeguard for the state’s death-row prisoners. In the case, the new far-right majority of the court ended the 50-year-old practice of conducting an independent proportionality review of a death sentence to determine whether the verdict was disproportional to the sentences imposed in other capital cases. The Florida Supreme Court…
Issues
Oct 26, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of October 19, 2020
NEWS (10/22/20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court has upheld the conviction and death sentence for Daniel Craven, Jr. for a 2015 prison murder. The court denied Craven’s claims that he was unconstitutionally denied the right to represent himself and that the trial court had violated his right to a fair jury by impaneling an African-American juror whom defense counsel had attempted to peremptorily strike. It also rejected several challenges Craven posed to the aggravating circumstances…
Issues
Upcoming Executions
,Women
,Federal Death Penalty
,Oct 19, 2020
U.S. Government Sets Two More Execution Dates, Seeking to Put to Death the First Woman and the Youngest Offender in More Than Six Decades
The federal government intends to continue its unprecedented execution spree into December, scheduling the executions of the first woman and the youngest offender put to death by federal authorities in nearly seven decades. In a Friday evening announcement, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on October 16, 2020 that it had set the execution of Lisa Montgomery (pictured) for December 8 and Brandon Bernard for December 10. Montgomery, a victim of sex trafficking who suffers from psychosis…
Research
Federal Death Penalty
,Oct 13, 2020
Federal Prosecutors Seek Supreme Court Review of Appeals Decision Overturning Death Sentence in Boston Marathon Bombing
Federal prosecutors have filed a petition in the U.S. Supreme Court asking the Court to review a federal appeals court ruling that overturned the death sentence imposed on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (pictured) in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. On October 6, 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a petition for writ of certiorari challenging the July 31 ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit that Tsarnaev’s right to an impartial jury had been denied when the trial judge failed…
Research
Women
,Mar 03, 2020
Sandra Lockett-Young, Whose Case Established a Capital Defendant’s Right to Present Mitigating Evidence, Has Died
Sandra Lockett-Young (pictured, right, with Sister Helen Prejean), whose case established a capital defendant’s right to present a broad range of mitigating evidence concerning her character, background, and record and the circumstances of her offense, has died. Lockett had suffered a severe stroke in June 2019 from which she never recovered. She died in an Ohio hospice on February 26, 2020 at 65 years old. Then 21 years old, Lockett was sentenced to death in 1975 under an Ohio law that…