Entries tagged with “Aging on death row”
Research
Aug 25, 2022
Idaho Supreme Court Rules Governor Has Authority to Reject Clemency Recommendation, Reinstates Death Penalty for Gerald Pizzuto
The Idaho Supreme Court has ruled that the state’s constitution permits a governor to reject clemency recommendations made by the Commission of Pardons and Parole, reversing a lower court’s decision that had blocked the state from executing terminally ill prisoner Gerald Pizzuto (pictured). The ruling may allow Idaho to carry out its first execution in more than a decade. The August 23, 2022 decision effectively reinstates Pizzuto’s death sentence, which the Commission of Pardons and Parole…
Executions
Time on Death Row
,Apr 22, 2022
One Execution, One Reprieve: Scheduled Executions of Oldest Death-Row Prisoners in Texas and Tennessee Illustrate Aging of Death Row
In a coincidence that brought attention to the aging of death row across the United States, the oldest death-row prisoners in Tennessee and Texas faced execution in their respective states on April 21, 2022. After the U.S. Supreme Court denied stays of execution for both prisoners, their cases took different paths. Oscar Franklin Smith, a 71-year-old who spent 22 years on death row in Tennessee, was notified while receiving communion that he had received a reprieve. Carl Wayne Buntion…
Research
Religion
,Apr 05, 2022
Oldest Texas Death-Row Prisoner Files Petition for Clemency Citing Time on Death Row, False Prediction that He Would be Dangerous in Prison
Texas’ oldest death-row prisoner, Carl Wayne Buntion (pictured), has filed a petition with the state Board of Pardons and Parole seeking commutation of his death sentence to life without parole. Buntion is currently scheduled to be executed on April 21, 2022. In a petition filed March 30, 2022, the 78-year-old Buntion’s lawyers asked the Board to recommend that Gov. Greg Abbott grant him clemency, arguing that his death sentence was imposed by a jury that falsely predicted he would pose a…
Issues
Jan 13, 2022
New Study: Kentucky Death Penalty Racially Biased, Arbitrary, Error Prone
Kentucky’s death penalty is racially discriminatory, geographically arbitrary, and riddled with systemic flaws, a new study of the commonwealth’s use of capital punishment has found. The study, A Statistical Overview of the Kentucky Death Penalty, by University of North Carolina political scientist Frank R. Baumgartner, examined Kentucky’s use of the death penalty from 1975, when its current system was implemented, to the present. Prof. Baumgartner released his analysis of the results on…
Research
Jan 04, 2022
Hospice-Bound Death-Row Prisoner Challenges Idaho Governor’s Authority to Reject Pardons Commission Commutation Decision
A hospice-bound death-row prisoner has filed a motion in Idaho state court challenging the authority of Governor Brad Little to reject a pardons commission recommendation that his death sentence be commuted to life without possibility of parole. Gerald Pizzuto, Jr., who was sentenced to death in 1986 for the killings of two gold prospectors, suffers from advanced bladder cancer, chronic heart and coronary artery disease, coronary obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and Type 2 diabetes with…
Death Row
Death Row Overview
,Time on Death Row
,Dec 10, 2021
Bureau of Justice Statistics: Death Row Below 2,500 First Time in 29 Years After 20 Consecutive Years of Decline, Average Time on Death Row Reaches 19.4 Years
The number of people under sentence of death in the United States has fallen below 2,500 for the first time in 29 years following twenty consecutive years of decline, according to the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). In a new report, Capital Punishment, 2020 – Statistical Tables, released December 10, 2021, BJS says that 2,469 people were under sentence of death in the custody of 28 states and the federal government as of December 31, 2020, down 3.7% from the…
Research
Nov 30, 2021
Idaho Pardons Commission Holds Clemency Hearing for Terminally Ill Death-Row Prisoner in Hospice Care
The sister of a terminally ill death-row prisoner who has been in hospice care since 2019 has asked the Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole to recommend that he be granted clemency so he can “die on God’s time.” In emotional testimony presented virtually on November 30, 2021, Angelinna Pizzuto told the parole board members that her brother, Gerald Pizzuto, Jr. (pictured), had been repeatedly beaten and raped by their stepfather throughout his childhood, and that social service agencies had…
Death Row
Death Row Overview
,Time on Death Row
,Jun 25, 2021
Bureau of Justice Statistics Reports Number on Death Row Down, Average Time on Death Row Approaches 19 Years
The number of prisoners on death row across the United States continues to decline while the average amount of time they have been on death row approaches 19 years, according to a new report from the Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). BJS’s June 2021 annual death penalty review found that 2,570 prisoners were under sentence of death in the custody of 29 states and the U.S. federal government as of December 31, 2019, down 2.1% from the 2,626 prisoners on death row at the…
Issues
Upcoming Executions
,May 21, 2021
Court Halts Execution of Terminally Ill Idaho Death-Row Prisoner
An Idaho trial court has stayed the scheduled June 2, 2021 execution of Gerald Pizzuto, Jr. (pictured), halting state prosecutors’ efforts to put the hospice-bound terminally ill prisoner to death before his stage‑4 cancer can take his life and state officials can consider his petition for clemency. On April 9, Pizzuto’s lawyers filed a clemency petition, seeking to commute his sentence to life without possibility parole based upon his terminal illness, brain damage from head injuries…
Issues
Nov 10, 2020
Lawyers Argue 79-Year-Old Ohio Death-Row Prisoner with Dementia is Incompetent to Be Executed
Lawyers for James Frazier (pictured), Ohio’s oldest death-row prisoner, have filed a motion to prevent his execution, arguing that he has severe vascular dementia that has rendered him unable to understand his punishment. Legal papers filed in the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas in October 2020 assert that Frazier, now 79 years old, suffered a series of mini-strokes in 2017 that have caused serious physical, psychological, and cognitive impairments that make him incompetent to be executed.
Death Row
Death Row Overview
,Apr 21, 2020
Case of 79-Year-Old Ohio Death-Row Prisoner With Dementia Highlights Legal Issues Exacerbated by the Aging of Death Row
Seventy-nine-year-old James Frazier (pictured) is Ohio’s oldest death-row prisoner. He has dementia, he cannot walk, and he requires the assistance of aides to complete daily tasks. Because of his special medical needs, he is incarcerated at the Franklin Medical Center, rather than on Ohio’s death row at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution. Ohio is scheduled to execute him on October 20, 2021. An April 19, 2020 story in the Cleveland Plain Dealer highlights Franklin’s case and the growing…
Issues
Feb 25, 2020
Vernon Madison, Whose Case Challenged Execution of Prisoners with Dementia, Dies on Alabama’s Death Row
Vernon Madison, an Alabama death-row prisoner whose severe dementia led to a major Supreme Court decision on competency to be executed, has died in prison at the age of 69. Madison’s case twice reached the U.S. Supreme Court on questions of the limits of federal court review of death-penalty cases and whether Alabama was entitled to execute an aging, infirm prisoner whose cognitive abilities were severely compromised. Madison’s attorneys argued that a series of strokes had left him without a…
Issues
Federal Death Penalty
,Dec 04, 2019
Lawyers for Federal Death-Row Prisoner Say Schizophrenia, Brain Injuries, and Dementia Have Left Him Incompetent to Be Executed
Lawyers for federal death-row prisoner Wesley Purkey, who is scheduled to be executed on December 13, 2019, say he is incompetent to be executed because he has Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, and traumatic brain injuries that “render him unable to rationally understand the reason the United States seeks to execute him.” Purkey’s complaint, filed November 26, 2019 in federal district court in Washington, catalogues a lifelong history of trauma and mental illness that have contributed to his…
Issues
Executions Overview
,Mar 01, 2019
Supreme Court Decides that Executing a Person With Dementia Could Be Unconstitutional
The United States Supreme Court has reversed a decision of the Alabama state courts that would have permitted the execution of Vernon Madison (pictured), a death-row prisoner whose severe dementia has left him with no memory of the crime for which he was sentenced to death and compromised his understanding of why he was to be executed. The Alabama courts had narrowly construed the Supreme Court’s past rulings that prohibited the execution of prisoners who had become mentally incompetent…
Issues
Executions Overview
,Death Row Overview
,Apr 20, 2018
Aging of Death Row Raises Humanitarian and Practical Concerns, As Alabama Executes 83-Year Old Prisoner
Death row is aging and increasingly infirm and, as a series of recent death warrants suggest, that phenomenon is raising legal, practical, and humanitarian concerns. One year after executing 75-year-old Thomas Arthur, Alabama on April 19 executed 83-year-old Walter Moody (pictured, left), the oldest person and only octogenarian put to death in the United States since executions resumed in 1977. Attempts to execute prisoners debilitated by physical and cognitive impairments exacerbated by aging…
Executions
Executions Overview
,Nov 16, 2017
Ohio Halts Execution of Physically Debilitated Prisoner After It Cannot Find Vein for Intravenous Line
Having failed to find a suitable vein in which to set an intravenous execution line, Ohio called off the scheduled November 15 execution of gravely ill and physically debilitated death-row prisoner, Alva Campbell (pictured). After execution personnel failed in four attempts to find a vein for the IV line, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction Director Gary Mohr stopped the execution and Governor John Kasich granted Campbell a temporary reprieve. Kasich rescheduled Campbell’s…