Policy Issues
Innocence
,Apr 09, 2002
100th DEATH ROW EXONEREE FREED IN ARIZONA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, April 9, 2002 CONTACT: BRENDA BOWSER (202) 293‑6970 bbowser@deathpenaltyinfo.org 100th DEATH ROW EXONEREE FREED IN ARIZONA
Innocence
,Apr 09, 2002
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, April 9, 2002 CONTACT: BRENDA BOWSER (202) 293‑6970 bbowser@deathpenaltyinfo.org 100th DEATH ROW EXONEREE FREED IN ARIZONA
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…
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…
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,United States Supreme Court
,Aug 03, 2022
Three groups of fair justice advocates have filed friend-of-the-court briefs asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review and overturn a Texas appeals court ruling that denied a new trial to a death-row prisoner who prosecutors and the…
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Jan 24, 2003
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 24, 2003 Contact: Richard Dieter: 202 – 293-6970 ANOTHER FLORIDA DEATH ROW INMATE TO BE RELEASED AFTER STATE DROPS ALL CHARGES
Innocence
,Feb 24, 2006
The Florida Supreme Court unanimously overturned the conviction of death row inmate John Robert Ballard (pictured) and ordered his acquittal in the 1999 murders of two of his acquaintances. The Court concluded that the evidence against Ballard was…
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,Feb 01, 2007
After spending 15 years in a New York prison for murder, Roy Brown has been exonerated through DNA evidence and is free. Brown is the eighth person in New York to be exonerated due to DNA evidence in the past 13 months, more than in any other stat…
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,Clemency
,Nov 12, 2010
Recent DNA tests raise serious doubts about the conviction of a man executed in Texas in 2000. The tests revealed that a strand of hair found at the scene of a liquor-store shooting did not belong to Claude Jones,…
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Upcoming Executions
,May 15, 2020
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has vacated a stay of execution for Missou…
Innocence
,Race
,Oct 22, 2021
A Bastrop, Texas trial court heard closing arguments October 18, 2021 on whether Texas death-row prisoner Rodney Reed should be granted a new trial in the April 1996 murder of Stacey Stites. The argument concluded the adversarial …
Innocence
,Apr 19, 2005
Attorney Barry Scheck plans to ask Texas Governor Rick Perry to order DNA testing in the case of Claude Jones, who maintained his innocence until his execution in December 2000. Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, says Jones’ conviction w…
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Apr 15, 2020
Beginning April 15, 2020, two television series — one a new program from Netflix and the other new episodes of a returning series from CNN — will highlight stories of wrongful convictions, including some death-penalty cases. The new Netfl…
Innocence
,Clemency
,Mar 28, 2022
Nearly 90 members of the Texas House of Representatives from across the ideological spectrum have issued a bipartisan call for the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Greg Abbott to grant clemency to death-row prisoner…
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,May 11, 2007
Curtis Edward McCarty, who had been sentenced to die three times and has spent 21 years on Oklahoma’s death row for a crime he did not commit, has been released after District Court Judge Twyla Mason Gray ordered that the charges ag…
Innocence
,Foreign Nationals
,Mar 14, 2018
The California Supreme Court has vacated the conviction of Vicente Figueroa Benavides (pictured), saying that the forensic evidence that sent the former Mexican farmworker to death row 25 years ago was “extensive,…
Intellectual Disability
,Representation
,Lethal Injection
,Mar 01, 2021
NEWS (2/25/21) — Alabama: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit has denied habeas relief for Alabama death-row prisoner Charles Clark, who the trial court had sentenced to death based upon a non‑u…
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,Intellectual Disability
,Secrecy
,May 07, 2020
NEWS (5/7/20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence imposed on
Innocence
,Race
,Representation
,Religion
,United States Supreme Court
,Women
,Feb 15, 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 …
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Race
,Sentencing Data
,Executions Overview
,Jun 06, 2020
NEWS (6/5/20) — North Carolina: The North Carolina Supreme Court has struck down the state legislature’s attempted retroactive repeal of the state’s Racial Justice Act, restoring the rights of approximately 130 death-row prisoners to seek …
Representation
,Oct 26, 2020
NEWS (10/22/20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court has upheld the conviction and death sentence for Daniel Craven, Jr.
Innocence
,May 04, 2015
On April 21, 2015, Oktibbeha County (Mississippi) District Attorney Forrest Allgood announced that he would drop charges against death row inmate
Oct 19, 2004
A five-part Chicago Tribune investigation of forensics in the courtroom has revealed that flawed testing analysis, questionable science once considered reliable, and shoddy crime lab practices can often lead to wrongful convictions. Developments i…
Innocence
,Race
,Jan 12, 2021
Eddie Lee Howard, Jr., convicted and sentenced to death based on the false forensic testimony of a since disgraced prosecution expert witness, has been exonerated after nearly 26 years on Mississippi’s death row. …
Innocence
,Aug 02, 2005
Thomas Doswell of Pennsylvania and Larry Peterson of New Jersey recently had their convictions overturned as a direct result of DNA testing. Each defendant had serverd 18 years in prison. In Peterson’s case, the prosecution had soug…
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…
Innocence
,Sep 28, 2021
Two men exonerated from death row, one in Ohio and one in Oklahoma, have received million ‑dollar payouts for their wrongful convictions and death sentences. Both were tried and convicted in counties with long his…
Arbitrariness
,Race
,United States Supreme Court
,Aug 09, 2016
Five groups, representing defense lawyers, former prosecutors, and organizations devoted to protecting constitutional liberties have filed amicus briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Texas death row prisoner Duan…
Innocence
,Jun 16, 2010
Texas Judge Paul C. Murphy recently ordered prosecutors to hand over key evidence from a 1989 murder case to the Innocence Project and the Texas Observer for DNA…
Innocence
,Apr 29, 2005
Results from DNA testing may soon lead to the exoneration of Larry Peterson in New Jersey. He would become the first person in the state to be cleared of a homicide through DNA evidence. Peterson was convicted of a rape and murder that occurred in…
Innocence
,Apr 09, 2002
100th DEATH ROW EXONEREE FREED IN ARIZONA DNA evidence vindicates man wrongfully convicted of 1991 murder WASHINGTON, DC — Ray Krone is the 100th innocent person convicted of capital murder to wal…
Oct 21, 2004
A CHICAGO TRIBUNE INVESTIGATIVE SERIESChicago Tribune veteran project reporters Flynn McRoberts, Steve Mills and Maurice Possley, together with researcher Judith Marriott, scrutinized criminal cases including “scientific” …
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:
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…
Prosecutorial Accountability
,Oct 24, 2017
Two recent appellate decisions by the Texas courts have thrust into the national spotlight the continuing controversy over the use of false or flawed forensic testimony to secure convictions in death penalty cases. On Oct…
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,Apr 20, 2015
(Click on image to enlarge). The Federal Bureau of Investigation has formally acknowledged that examiners from the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit for decades provided flawed forensic testimony purportedly matching crime scene ha…
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,Jul 18, 2013
A Federal Bureau of Investigation review of more than 21,000 cases has revealed 27 death penalty cases in which the FBI’s forensic experts may have exaggerated the scientific conclusions that could be drawn from their testimony, m…
Innocence
,Women
,Jul 31, 2019
Citing trial court interference in her right to present a defense, a federal appeals court has overturned the conviction of a Texas mother who was sentenced to death on charges that she had murdered her two-year-old daughter. In an unpublished, un…
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Apr 30, 2019
A federal district court has overturned the conviction of Genesis Hill (pictured), who was sentenced to death in Ohio in 1991 for the death of his six-month-old daughter, Domika, based upon a questionable shaken‑b…
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
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,Sentencing Data
,May 21, 2020
The first new death sentence and first execution since public health concerns arising from the coronavirus pandemic shuttered most court proceedings across the country have highlighted several of the gravest concerns about the death penalty in the…
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…
Mental Illness
,Recent Legislative Activity
,Apr 20, 2021
A controversial psychiatrist who repeatedly testified that severely mentally ill death-row prisoners were faking their symptoms and were competent to be executed has been barred from medical practice in Florida. On March 3…
Innocence
,Jul 07, 2022
The Florida Supreme Court has rejected an attempt by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody to prevent DNA testing and fingerprint analysis of evidence lawyers for Henry Sireci (pictured) say could prove him innoce…
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,Nov 17, 2015
In light of the FBI’s acknowledgement in April that flawed forensic testimony by its expert hair-comparison analysts had tainted at least 268 cases, including 32 death penalty ca…
Innocence
,Apr 18, 2022
Forensics experts and three exonerees wrongfully convicted of murder based upon junk-science diagnoses of Shaken Baby Syndrome are urging the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) to overturn the conviction of death-row prisoner …
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,New Voices
,Aug 15, 2018
Calling Oklahoma “the notorious home of ‘Hang ’Em High’ executions,” conservative commentator and Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin (pictured) has urged the state to adopt sytemic reforms to address its “wretch…
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Nov 05, 2015
Oklahoma County has executed 41 prisoners since 197…
Innocence
,Dec 05, 2007
On December 5, a Tennessee jury acquitted Michael Lee McCormick of the 1985 murder of Donna Jean Nichols, a crime for which McCormick spent 16 years on death row. In his first trial, the prosecution introduced hair evidence from Nichols’ car that …
Innocence
,Sep 11, 2023
In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, novelist John Grisham recounts the flawed science that led to the conviction of Robert Roberson (pictured, with his daughter Nikki) and the inadequate legal process that has maintained that conviction.…
Innocence
,Sep 10, 2007
A Texas judge blocked the destruction of DNA evidence that could prove the innocence of a man who was executed in 2000. A joint motion filed by a coalition of concerned groups sought DNA testing on a hair taken from the crime scene in the case of …
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,Mar 14, 2011
On March 10, a North Carolina superior court judge released his opinion throwing out murder charges against Derrick Michael Allen, who was accused in the 1998 death and sexual assault of a 2‑year-old girl. Judge O…
Oct 22, 2003
Michael Lee McCormick has been on Tennessee’s death row for 17 years, but a recent court decision throwing out the remaining evidence against him could result in his freedom. Judge Doug Meyer ruled that tapes containing conversations between McCor…
Innocence
,Oct 03, 2019
James Rytting, an attorney who represented Texas prisoner Larry Swearingen, describes the junk science used to convict his cli…
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 …
Innocence
,Representation
,Sep 06, 2016
Attorneys for Mississippi death row prisoner Eddie Lee Howard (pictured) are seeking to prove his innocence and challenging the questionable expert bite mark…
Arbitrariness
,Jan 10, 2013
Jeffrey Havard (pictured) is facing execution in Mississippi despite the fact that key evidence against him came from a medical examiner who has been harshly criticized by experts in his field. Havard was convicte…
Innocence
,Jul 15, 2022
The Mississippi Supreme Court has denied additional DNA testing to death-row prisoner Willie Manning (pictured). Manning, who was sentenced to death in Oktibbeha County in 1994 and in 1996 for two separate crimes,…
Innocence
,Sep 01, 2020
The Mississippi Supreme Court has granted a new trial to death-row prisoner Eddie Lee Howard, Jr. (pictured), finding that the combination of scientifically invalid bite-mark evidence used to convict him and new DNA evidence entit…
Innocence
,Oct 31, 2017
Appeals courts in Mississippi and Pennsylvania have granted new trials to two men who have long asserted their innocence of charges that had sent them to their states’ death rows. On October 26, the Mississ…
Innocence
,Feb 18, 2013
One For Ten is a new collection of documentary films telling the stories of innocent people who were on death row in the U.S. The first film of the series is on Ray Krone…
Jun 01, 2003
by Ira SaletanFriends Committee on Legislation of Californiareprinted from the FCL Newsletter, June 2003 edition FCL Development & Outreach Coordinator Ira Saletan recently met with Greg Wilhoit, who served four ye…
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 …
Innocence
,Oct 10, 2019
In the latest episode of Discussions with DPIC, Texas
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,Jul 23, 2007
A recent four-part series in the Denver Post about evidence in criminal cases detailed how police departments across the U.S. store and dispose of crucial biological evidence. The Post examined 10 states in which authorities destroyed biological e…
Innocence
,Aug 18, 2011
The Innocence Project has launched a new multimedia resource illustrating the main causes of wrongful convictions and the reforms necessary to prevent such mistakes. This interactive t…
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,New Voices
,Sep 24, 2014
William Sessions, former head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, recently pointed to cases of defendants who were executed based in part on faulty hair and fiber analysis in calling for changes in the use of forensic evidence…
Intellectual Disability
,Upcoming Executions
,Federal Death Penalty
,Aug 02, 2020
As July 2020 came to a close, the federal government issued two more notices of execution and a county judge in Texas reportedly issued a new death warrant for a death-row prisoner whose previously scheduled execution had been stayed.
Innocence
,Nov 03, 2020
A three-judge panel in Madison County, Ohio has acquitted a man prosecutors charged with capital murder for allegedly setting his car on fire to burn down his house with his wife and children inside. The judges rejected p…
Innocence
,Clemency
,Dec 03, 2010
A recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, highlighs flaws in Texas’s death penalty system that led to the execution of Claude Jones …
Innocence
,New Voices
,Jun 11, 2013
In a recent op-ed in the Baltimore Sun, former FBI Director William Sessions (pictured) underscored the importance of reliable FBI forensic analysis in convicting the guilty and exonerating the innocent. Sessions provided…
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Aug 10, 2020
After 12 years as Orleans Parish, Louisiana District Attorney, Leon Cannizzaro (pictured) has announced that he will not seek re-election and will be retiring as D.A. at the end of this term. Cann…
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Sep 02, 2016
Maricopa County, Arizona imposed 28 death sentences between 2010 and 2015 and, as described in a BuzzFeed news analysis of a new report on outlier death penalty practices, “stands out for its stark exampl…
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Representation
,Jan 27, 2021
Former lightweight and junior welterweight boxing contender Anthony Fletcher (pictured) has been released from prison, 28 years after he was wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder and sent to Pennsylvania’s d…
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,Sep 16, 2014
A new appeal filed on behalf of Mississippi death row inmate Eddie Howard, Jr. presented DNA evidence that calls into question bite-mark evidence used to convict him in 1992. At Howard’s trial, Dr. Michael West, a…
Innocence
,Feb 08, 2017
More than 2,600 Florida cases — including at least one capital case — may have been tainted by erroneous fingerprint analysis by a long-term employee of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, according to letters sent to defense counsel …
Innocence
,Crimes Punishable by Death
,Sep 24, 2018
Sixteen years after a notorious and now-discredited forensic witness told a Mississippi jury that Jeffrey Havard had sexually abused and shaken his girlfriend’s six-month-old daughter to death, Havard’s death sent…
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…
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Sep 17, 2020
A Florida man and an Arkansas woman, convicted of murder in separate cases involving junk science and prosecutorial misconduct, have been exonerated, decades after being wrongfully capitally prosecuted.
Innocence
,Sep 30, 2021
Sherwood Brown has been exonerated of the charges that sent him to death row in Mississippi in 1995 for a triple murder he did not commit. On August 24, 2021, DeSoto County Circuit Court Judge Jim…
Innocence
,Apr 03, 2009
A groundbreaking study by Brandon Garrett and Peter Neufeld published in the Virginia Law Review explores erroneous scientific testimony by prosecution experts in the trials of defendants who were later exonerated through DNA testing. The research…
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,Aug 12, 2013
The Texas Forensic Science Commission announced it will study prior criminal convictions to determine whether mistakes were made using discredited forensic testimony. The Commission will employ DNA testing to review cases in which…
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…
Costs
,Innocence
,Jun 22, 2015
A new study by North Carolina’s Center for Death Penalty Litigation examines the financial and human costs of cases in which, “prosecutors sought the death penalty despite a clear lack of evidence, resulting in acquittal or dismis…
Innocence
,Oct 25, 2016
Sherman Brown (pictured), a man who was sentenced to death in Virginia in 1970 for the murder of a 4‑year-old boy, has filed a writ of actual innocence with the Virginia Supreme Court saying that DNA testing on re…
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…
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,United States Supreme Court
,Jan 13, 2023
The U.S. Supreme Court has reversed the denial of relief to a Texas death-row prisoner whose request for new trial is supported by local prosecutors. In a two-sentence decision, the Court granted certiorari to Areli Escoba…
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
Innocence
,Jun 03, 2019
In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released a landmark report titled Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward, in which it raised significa…
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,May 13, 2020
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has upheld the ruling of a Dallas trial court that denied a new trial to death-row prisoner
Prosecutorial Accountability
,Mar 31, 2020
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has once again rejected the findings of a trial court that a death-row prisoner was entitled to relief from his conviction or death sentence. Applying a narrow interpretation of …
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,Representation
,Jun 17, 2016
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has granted a stay of execution to Robert Roberson (pictured), who had been scheduled to be executed on June 21 for the 2003 death of his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Nikki…
Victims' Families
,Executions Overview
,Apr 10, 2017
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has issued an order staying the scheduled April 12 execution of Paul Storey. The unpublished April 7 order sends Storey’s case back to the trial court to consider whether the pr…
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,May 27, 2008
Based on statements from the District Attorney’s office, it appears that Texas wrongly convicted Michael Blair and sentenced him to death in 1994 for the sexual assault and murder of 7‑year-old Ashley Estell. The case led to the passage of “Ashley…
Aug 15, 2022
Texas on August 17, 2022 executed Kosoul Chanthakoummane (pictured), whose conviction prosecutors obtained with discredited forensic testimony. He was the second defendant of color in less than a month to be put t…
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…
Representation
,Religion
,Upcoming Executions
,Oct 12, 2021
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 h…
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,Lethal Injection
,Jan 15, 2016
As Texas readies itself to execute Richard Masterson (pictured), his lawyers have filed new pleadings questioning whether any murder occurred at all and are seeking a
Arbitrariness
,Intellectual Disability
,Executions Overview
,Jan 11, 2019
[UPDATE: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay of execution to Blaine Milam on January 14, 2019] As Texas prepares …
Innocence
,May 18, 2023
On May 11, attorneys for Robert Roberson, a death-sentenced prisoner in Texas, filed a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court asking it to reverse the decision of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA). Mr. Roberson’s convicti…
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…
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Oct 10, 2017
Though no physical evidence links him to the crime, Texas is set to execute Robert Pruett (pictured) on October 12 for the 1999 stabbing death of a state correctional officer who …
Aug 19, 2000
ABC News Aug. 19 — Greg Wilhoit remembers his desperation as he was brought in to his cellblock at the State Penitentiary in McAlester, Okla. I thought, My life’s over, literally over,” he says. As prisoner 100841, Wilhoit faced th…
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,United States Supreme Court
,Nov 11, 2022
The United States Supreme Court has requested the production of the appellate record of a death penalty case in which the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) refused to grant a new trial to a death-row prisoner despite the agre…
Innocence
,Foreign Nationals
,Apr 18, 2018
Mexican national Vicente Figueroa Benavides (pictured), wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in Kern County, California for supposedly raping, sodomizing, and murdering his girlfriend’s 21-month-old daughter, …
May 13, 2001
Joyce Gilchrist helped send dozens to death row. The forensic scientist’s errors are putting capital punishment under the microscope By BELINDA LUSCOMBETime MagazinePosted Sunday, May 13, 2001…