Entries tagged with “Stephen Barbee”

Facts & Research

History of the Death Penalty

,

Botched Executions

,

Lethal Injection

,

Dec 07, 2022

As Lethal Injection Turns Forty, States Botch a Record Number of Executions

On December 7, 1982, Texas strapped Charles Brooks to a gur­ney, insert­ed an intra­venous line into his arm, and inject­ed a lethal dose of sodi­um thiopen­tal into his veins, launch­ing the lethal-injec­tion era of American exe­cu­tions. In the pre­cise­ly forty years since, U.S. states and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment have put 1377 pris­on­ers to death by some ver­sion of the method. Touted as swift and pain­less and a more humane way to die — just as exe­cu­tion pro­po­nents had said near­ly a cen­tu­ry before about…

Executions

Upcoming Executions

,

Nov 14, 2022

Week of Four Scheduled Executions Highlights Continued Concerns With the Use of the Death Penalty

The four exe­cu­tions sched­uled for the week of November 17th high­light cur­rent trends in exe­cu­tions and death sen­tenc­ing and the con­tin­ued use of the death penal­ty against vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions. The pris­on­ers sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed by four states have raised a num­ber of issues, includ­ing pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, inef­fec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel, dis­crim­i­na­tion against Black jurors, judi­cial over­ride of jury deci­sion­mak­ing, seri­ous men­tal ill­ness, and brain…

Policy Issues

Representation

,

Religion

,

Upcoming Executions

,

Oct 12, 2021

Texas Federal Court Stays Execution of Stephen Barbee on Religious Freedom Issue, Defense Seeks Review of False Forensic Testimony

A fed­er­al court in Texas has stayed the October 12, 2021 exe­cu­tion of Texas death-row pris­on­er Stephen Barbee on his claims that the state’s refusal to allow his spir­i­tu­al advi­sor to admin­is­ter last rites, touch him, or pray out loud in the exe­cu­tion cham­ber vio­lates his con­sti­tu­tion­al and fed­er­al statu­to­ry rights to free exer­cise of reli­gion. Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas issued the stay…