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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Oct 16, 2000
New York Times By JIM YARDLEY In a broad critique of capital punishment in Texas, a new report concludes that the state’s death penalty system is in dire need of change because of problems like prosecutorial misconduct, racial bias…
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…
Executions Overview
,Oct 13, 2016
Texas is poised to have the fewest number of executions in 20 years. As of October, the state has executed seven prisoners in 2016, with just one more execution scheduled this calendar year. The total would mark the fewest executions in t…
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
,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…
