Intellectual Disability
,Race
,Representation
,Dec 31, 2000
A State of Denial: Texas Justice and the Death Penalty Texas Defender Service* Executive Summary The nation is embroiled in a debate over the death penalty. Each day brings fresh accounts of racial bias, incompetent counsel, an…
Race
,United States Supreme Court
,Apr 15, 2022
An amicus brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Arizona death-row prisoner John Montenegro Cruz presents evidence that Latinx defendants are particularly vulnerable to juror bias regarding determinat…
Recent Legislative Activity
,May 28, 2019
An amended bill to narrow the circumstances in which the death penalty may be imposed in Oregon has easily passed the state senate. On May 21, 2019, by a vote of 18 – 9, the Oregon Senate passed SB 1013, whic…
Arbitrariness
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Dec 26, 2019
Billy Joe Wardlow (pictured) was 18 years old, when he killed 82-year-old Carl Cole during a botched attempt to steal Cole’s car so that Wardlow and his girlfriend could pursue their fantasy of running away from their abusive home…
Aug 20, 2004
A broad spectrum of the public is seeking clemency for Texas death row inmate James Allridge, who is scheduled to be executed on Thursday, August 26th. Among those pointing to Allridge’s rehabilitation as the basis for mercy are four of the ori…
Arbitrariness
,Mental Illness
,Representation
,Native Americans
,May 03, 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. …
Arbitrariness
,Intellectual Disability
,Representation
,Sentencing Alternatives
,Jun 07, 2021
NEWS (6/4/21) — Arizona: The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in Lynch v. Arizona, which struck down the state’s unconstitutional refusal to instruct capital-sentencing juries that defend…
Jan 08, 2001
THE NATION By ROBERT SHERILL Part 1 of 2 “Capital punishment is to the rest of all law as surrealism is to realism. It destroys the logic of the profession.” — Norman Mailer, The Executioner’s Song…
Race
,United States Supreme Court
,Feb 11, 2019
Georgia death-row prisoner Keith Tharpe (pictured, left) and Oklahoma death-row prisoner
Arbitrariness
,Clemency
,New Voices
,Aug 19, 2016
As his August 24 execution date approaches, Jeffrey Wood’s case has garnered mounting attention from groups and individuals calling on the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles …
Race
,United States Supreme Court
,Jun 09, 2017
Thirty years ago, filmmaker Errol Morris, who directed the documentary “The Thin Blue Line,” helped to exonerate Texas death-row prisoner Dale Adams, falsely accused of murdering a police officer. During the course of making the f…
Jun 17, 2004
A recent Dallas Morning News editorial decried the use of expert witnesses who claim to have the ability to predict future dangerousness, a determination that jurors in Texas heavily rely on in sentencing people to death. The editorial states:
Intellectual Disability
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Sentencing Alternatives
,Sep 25, 2019
Texas is preparing to execute Robert Sparks (pictured, left), on September 25, 2019, as a second death-row prisoner, Stephen Barbee (pictured, below), received a stay from the Texas Court of Crim…
Arbitrariness
,Sentencing Data
,Oct 21, 2010
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals recently held that the methodology used by Dr. Richard Coons to predict the “future dangerousness” of capital defendants was unreliable. Whether a convicted defendant would be a…
Arbitrariness
,Race
,Dec 08, 2016
Since 1973, juries in Texas have had to determine whether a defendant presents a future danger to society before imposing a death sentence. But while they have found that each of the 244 men and women currently on the state’s deat…
Arbitrariness
,Race
,Aug 27, 2015
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected an appeal in the case of Texas death row inmate Duane Buck
Jun 11, 2000
Chicago Tribune By STEVE MILLS, KEN ARMSTRONG and DOUGLAS HOLT Tribune Staff Writers First of two parts. AUSTIN, Texas — Under Gov. George W. Bush, Texas has executed dozens of Death Row inmates whose cases were comprom…
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,Aug 31, 2009
In a thorough and penetrating article published in The New Yorker on August 31, David Grann offers further evidence that Texas probably executed an innocent man in 2004. Grann carefully examines all the e…
Crimes Punishable by Death
,Sep 14, 2016
Today, DPIC launches a new podcast series, “Discussions With DPIC,” which will feature monthly, unscripted conversations with death penalty experts on a wide variety of topics. The inaugural episode features a conversation between Texas Defender S…
Juveniles
,Race
,Clemency
,Upcoming Executions
,Federal Death Penalty
,Dec 08, 2020
As the December 10, 2020 execution date of federal death-row prisoner Brandon Bernard (pictured with his family) approached, jurors and a former prosecutor in his case came forward saying that the teen offender’s life should be sp…
Intellectual Disability
,Mental Illness
,Sentencing Data
,Executions Overview
,Oct 08, 2018
Junk science is “enabling and perpetuating grave miscarriages of justice” in Texas death-penalty cases. So concludes Professor James Acker in his article, Snake Oil With A Bite: The Lethal Veneer of Science an…
Arbitrariness
,Mar 09, 2017
In a new article for the Lewis & Clark Law Review, author Carla Edmondson argues that the future dangerousness inquiry that is implicit in capital setencing determinations “is a fundamentally flawed question that leads to arbitrary and capricious …
Juveniles
,United States Supreme Court
,Jun 23, 2020
Three professional organizations and eight practitioners in the fields of neuroscience and neuropsychology have joined a Texas death-row prisoner in challenging the constitutionality of the state’s use of “future dangerousness” findings to impose …
Race
,United States Supreme Court
,Jun 28, 2017
In DPIC’s latest podcast, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Litigation Director Christina Swarns (pictured, center, outside the U.S. Supreme Court following the argument …
Arbitrariness
,Crimes Punishable by Death
,Sep 14, 2016
Today, DPIC launches a new podcast series, “Discussions With DPIC,” which will feature monthly, unscripted conversations with death penalty experts on a wide variety of topics. The inaugural episode features a conversation between Texas Defender S…
Mar 31, 2004
NEW STUDY BY TEXAS DEFENDER SERVICE Read Deadly Speculation — Misleading Texas Capital Juries with False Predictions of Future Dangerousness (PDF), a new repor…
Mar 31, 2004
A new study conducted by the Texas Defender Service and Professor John Edens of Sam Houston State University found that state predictions of the future dangerousness of capital defendants were grossly inaccurate. The review examined the cases of 1…
Arbitrariness
,New Voices
,Dec 28, 2011
On December 19, Dallas District Court Judge Teresa Hawthorne held that Texas’s death penalty was unconstitutional because it could lead to death sentences that were arbitrarily sought and obtained. In ruling in favor of a defense …
Clemency
,Religion
,Apr 05, 2022
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 current…
Time on Death Row
,Apr 22, 2022
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. Afte…
Arbitrariness
,Race
,United States Supreme Court
,Sep 02, 2011
Texas inmate Duane Buck (pictured) is one of seven death row inmates whose death sentences were tainted by improper racial testimony presented at their trials. In 2000, then-Texas Attorney General John Cor…
Race
,Mar 14, 2013
A new study regarding the use of the death penalty in Harris County, Texas, was released in conjunction with the filing of an appeal by Harris County death row inmate, Duane Buck. The research was conducted by Pro…
Arbitrariness
,Intellectual Disability
,Mental Illness
,Sep 18, 2013
On September 18, the American Bar Association’s Death Penalty Due Process Review Project released its latest report, focus…
Arbitrariness
,Mental Illness
,Apr 02, 2020
Courts are failing badly in keeping junk psychological science out of the courtroom in criminal cases, permitting the admission of psychological tests that have never been reviewed for reliability and others that have been found unreliable, a rece…
Race
,Representation
,United States Supreme Court
,Apr 28, 2021
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review a Georgia death-penalty case in which the prosecution was permitted to make a visibly shackled defendant reenact the murder in front of the jury, while his defense cou…
Race
,Representation
,United States Supreme Court
,Feb 22, 2017
Saying that the “law punishes people for what they do, not who they are,” the Supreme Court on February 22, 2017, granted relief to Duane Buck (pictured, right), a Texas death-row prisoner who was…
Arbitrariness
,Race
,United States Supreme Court
,Mar 19, 2019
For the second time in just over one month, the United States Supreme Court has cleared the way for the execution of an African-American prisoner in the face of strong evidence of racial or religious bias. On March 18, 2019, the C…
Arbitrariness
,Race
,Apr 15, 2016
UPDATE: The Supreme Court docket indicates that its conferencing of Mr. Buck’s case, originally set for April 22, has been rescheduled. The Court is now scheduled to considering the case on April 29. PREVIOUSLY: On April 22, the U.S. Supreme Court…
Intellectual Disability
,Race
,United States Supreme Court
,Jun 06, 2016
On June 6, the U.S. Supreme Court granted writs of certiorari in two Texas death penalty cases, and will review the constitutionality of those death sentences during its next term. The two cases are
Arbitrariness
,Race
,Nov 20, 2013
In a 6 – 3 decision on November 20, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied a request from death row inmate Duane Buck for a new sentencing hearing, despite the fact that racially prejudicial statements had been …
Arbitrariness
,Clemency
,Nov 27, 2018
For the second time in less than six months, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has upheld a death sentence that the trial court, lawyers for the prosec…
Arbitrariness
,Clemency
,Dec 08, 2017
The Texas prosecutor who sought and obtained the death penalty almost 20 years ago against Jeffery Wood (pictured), a man who never killed anyone, has now asked that his sentence be reduced to life in prison. In a…
Arbitrariness
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Feb 28, 2019
Texas is scheduled to execute Billie Wayne Coble (pictured) on February 28, 2019, despite court findings that two expert witnesses who testified for the prosecution gave “problematic” and “fabricated” testimony at…
Arbitrariness
,Race
,Sentencing Data
,Feb 11, 2016
Duane Buck, who was sentenced to death after a defense expert witness testified that Buck could pose a future danger to society because he is black, has asked the U.S. Suprem…
Arbitrariness
,Aug 04, 2016
Lawyers for Jeffery Wood (pictured), a Texas death row prisoner who is scheduled to be executed August 24 despite undisputed evidence that he has never killed anyone, have filed a
Arbitrariness
,Jun 16, 2004
Texas plans to execute David Harris on June 30th on the basis of a prediction in 1986 that he would be a future danger even if sentenced to life in prison. Dr. Edward Gripon testified that Harris posed a substantial risk of commit…
Arbitrariness
,Upcoming Executions
,Dec 10, 2019
Texas is preparing to execute Travis Runnels (pictured) on December 11, 2019 based on the “expert” testimony of a prosecution investigator whose false depiction of prison conditions has helped to put fifteen defen…
Race
,Jun 28, 2017
Christina Swarns, litigation director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, speaks with DPIC Executive Director Robert Dunham about the case of Texas death-row prisoner Duane Buck and the impact of racial bias on determinations of future …
Mental Illness
,Representation
,Upcoming Executions
,Women
,Federal Death Penalty
,Oct 19, 2020
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 ann…
Race
,United States Supreme Court
,Nov 08, 2011
On November 7, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to grant review to Texas inmate Duane Buck. Buck sought a new sentencing trial because of testimony suggesting he posed a greater danger to society b…
Prosecutorial Accountability
,Sentencing Data
,United States Supreme Court
,Jun 02, 2016
The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned a death sentence imposed on Shawn Patrick Lynch by an Arizona jury that had not been told he would have been ineligible for parole if jurors sentenced to him …
