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…
Arbitrariness
,Intellectual Disability
,Race
,Sep 13, 2022
An Alabama appeals court has upheld a fifth non-unanimous death sentence imposed on a death-row prisoner who has faced six capital sentencing trials for the same offense and was once found to be ineligible for the death penalty be…
Race
,Native Americans
,Federal Death Penalty
,May 04, 2020
In a federal capital case with implications relating to tribal sovereignty, a federal appeals court has denied a Native-American prisoner’s appeal seeking to investigate racial bias in his case, while questioning the federal government’s pursuit o…
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…
Sentencing Data
,Sep 14, 2022
The outcome of a capital prosecution can be predicted based upon the relative social status of the victim, the defendant, and the jurors, applying a sociology concept known as the geometrical theory of law, according to the authors of a new book, …
Intellectual Disability
,Race
,Recent Legislative Activity
,Sep 04, 2020
In the closing days of its 2020 legislative session, the California legislature passed a trio of racial justice reform bills expected to reduce the influence of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic bias in the administration of the d…
Arbitrariness
,Jun 07, 2021
The California Supreme Court heard oral argument on June 2, 2021 in a capital case whose outcome could affect the fate of hundreds of prisoners on the state’s death row. Supported by friend-of-the-court briefs by California Govern…
Arbitrariness
,Aug 25, 2020
Ruling in one of the most sensationalized trials of the early 2000s, the California Supreme Court has overturned the death sentence imposed on Scott Peterson for the murders of his pregnant wife, Laci, and their u…
Arbitrariness
,Sentencing Alternatives
,Sentencing Data
,Jul 19, 2019
Calling Governor Gavin Newsom’s moratorium on executions a “paradigm shift” in the death-penalty landscape, a defendant facing the death penalty in
Arbitrariness
,Intellectual Disability
,Mental Illness
,Race
,Upcoming Executions
,Jul 01, 2020
NEWS (7/2/20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court denied relief to death-row prisoner Lero…
Race
,Representation
,Federal Death Penalty
,Aug 17, 2020
NEWS (8/14/20) — Alabama: The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals has affirmed a lower court ruling granting a new trial to death-row prisoner Ste…
Intellectual Disability
,Mental Illness
,Representation
,Aug 24, 2020
NEWS (8/19/20) — California: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit released habeas corpus appeal decisions in two capital cases involving California death-row prisoner Martin Kipp, overturning his conviction in a case prosecuted …
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
,United States Supreme Court
,Lethal Injection
,Federal Death Penalty
,Jun 19, 2020
NEWS (6/19/20) — California: In one of the few capital trials to move forward during the COVID-19 pandemic, a San Jose jury acquitted Manuel Anthony Lopez of charges that he had raped and murdered his girlfriend’s two-year-old son.
Prosecutorial Accountability
,Race
,Nov 19, 2019
Two civil rights organizations have filed a class action lawsuit against Mississippi prosecutor Doug Evans (pictured) seeking an end to what they describe as a “policy, custom, and usage of racially discriminatory…
Prosecutorial Accountability
,Race
,Aug 21, 2020
Declaring that “[r]acism still exists and has no place in society,” the Tennessee Supreme Court on June 25, 2020 directed its Access to Justice Commission (AJC) to create “a new initiative to identify and eliminate barriers to rac…
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Race
,Sep 08, 2020
After six trials marred by prosecutorial misconduct and racial prejudice, drawing a scathing rebuke from the U.S. Supreme Court, former Mississippi death-row prisoner Curtis Flowers (pictured with the ankle monito…
Race
,Aug 03, 2021
Racial bias in jury selection is compromising the “credibility, reliability, and integrity of the legal system,” and its effects are especially pronounced in death penalty cases, a new report from the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI…
Federal Death Penalty
,Dec 13, 2019
Lawyers for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (pictured) sought to overturn his conviction and federal death sentence on Thursday, arguing in a federal appeals court that he could not get a fair trial in a city still trauma…
United States Supreme Court
,Federal Death Penalty
,Oct 13, 2020
Federal prosecutors have filed a petition in the U.S. Supreme Court asking the Court to review a federal app…
Recent Legislative Activity
,Feb 06, 2023
At the urging of Governor Ron DeSantis, bills have been introduced in the Florida House and Senate that would allow death sentences even when the jury cannot come to a unanimous verdict on the proper penalty. The proposed legislation would also pe…
Recent Legislative Activity
,Apr 18, 2023
Florida is poised to become the state with the nation’s lowest threshold for juries to recommend death sentences, after the state legislature passed a bill allowing a judge to impose death if at least eight out of twelve jurors agree. Most states,…
Sentencing Alternatives
,Jan 31, 2020
After nearly two decades of capital trials and death-penalty reversals, former Florida death-row prisoner David Snelgrove has been resentenced to life in prison without parole. His three sentencing trials provided a barometer of t…
Innocence
,Intellectual Disability
,Race
,Oct 28, 2022
Two-thirds of Black women and more than half of Black men have been struck from jury service in Duval County death penalty cases, more than double the rate at which white prospective jurors are excluded, a study of capital jury se…
Arbitrariness
,Sentencing Alternatives
,Jan 24, 2020
In a dramatic reversal made possible by changes in court personnel, the Florida Supreme Court has repudiated its prior decisions requiring that capital sentencing juries unanimously agree to the death penalty before a trial judge …
Innocence
,Intellectual Disability
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Race
,May 22, 2020
Johnny Lee Gates (pictured) is free, 43 years after being sentenced to death in Georgia for a murder he has steadfastly maintained he did not commit. On May 15, 2020, Gates entered a so-called “Alford…
Prosecutorial Accountability
,Victims' Families
,Jan 29, 2020
Georgia executed Donnie Lance on January 29, 2020 after his requests for DNA testing and a plea for clemency supported by the children he and murder victim Joy Lance shared were denied. Lance was convicted …
Innocence
,Intellectual Disability
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Race
,Mar 16, 2020
More than forty years after he was convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white Columbus, Georgia jury for the rape and murder of a 19-year-old white woman, Johnny Lee Gates (pictured) will be getting a new trial. On March 13,…
Arbitrariness
,Upcoming Executions
,Nov 18, 2019
A Tennessee death-row prisoner who is facing execution in early December is seeking to reverse his 1992 conviction and death sentence in light of new information that a juror who served on his case failed to disclose that she was …
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…
Oct 03, 2019
Jurors in South Carolina report that they are experiencing profound psychological effects from their exposure to graphically violent images, testimony, and argument during the death-penalty trial of Tim Jones, Jr.
Race
,Jan 20, 2023
A Kansas capital defendant is challenging the prosecution’s decision to pursue the death penalty in his case, invoking a heightened standard of review the Kansas constitution applies to infringements of fundamental rights.
Innocence
,Race
,Clemency
,Oct 03, 2015
On October 2, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon commuted the death sentence of Kimber Edwards to life without parole. Edwards had faced execution on October 6 for the alleged murder-for-hire killing of his ex-wife. …
Federal Death Penalty
,Apr 04, 2022
In the March 2022 episode of Discussions With DPIC, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law Senior Lecturer Meredith Rountree speaks with Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham about her study of th…
Race
,Jun 30, 2020
In the June 2020 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Henderson Hill (pictured), Senior Counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union Capital Punishment Project, speaks with Death Penalty Information Center Executive Directo…
Mental Illness
,Sentencing Alternatives
,Oct 13, 2022
A non-unanimous Florida jury has returned a verdict of life without parole for Nikolas Cruz, the teen offender convicted of killing 17 people in the February 14, 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas H…
Race
,New Voices
,Dec 02, 2016
With 55 executions since the 1970s, Dallas County, Texas, ranks second among all U.S. counties — behind only Harris County (Houston), Texas — in the number of prisoners it has put to death. It is also among the
Race
,Victims' Families
,Upcoming Executions
,Native Americans
,Federal Death Penalty
,Jul 30, 2020
The U.S. government has set an August 26, 2020 execution date for the sole Native American on federal death row, against the wishes of his tribe, the victims’ family, and the local U.S. Attorney’s office that prosecuted the case.On July 29,…
Race
,Jun 12, 2020
A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has documented a strong link between individuals who hold dehumanizing belief systems and support for capital punishment. The study by University…
Race
,United States Supreme Court
,Apr 28, 2022
Five years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas death sentence when an expert witness had testified that a Black defendant posed an increased risk of committing future acts of violence because of his race, the Court ha…
Mental Illness
,Time on Death Row
,Apr 19, 2021
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has overturned the death sentence of the nation’s longest-serving death-row prisoner, 45 years after he was first sent to death row. In an unpublished opinion issued on April 14, 2021, the TCCA h…
Mental Illness
,Race
,Nov 29, 2022
Texas is planning to execute a seriously mentally ill prisoner who has gouged out both of his eyes because of his paranoid schizophrenia. On November 7, 2022, the District Court of Grayson County, Texas set an April 5, 2023 execution date for
United States Supreme Court
,Mar 11, 2020
Former Florida death-row prisoner Timothy Hurst (pictured), whose case led the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down Florida’s death-penalty statute in 2016 and spurred the elimination of non-unanimo…
Mental Illness
,Race
,Oct 18, 2022
With three justices dissenting, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case of Texas death-row prisoner Andre Thomas, who was sentenced to death by jurors who admitted to racial bias. In a…
