Race
,Representation
,Sentencing Data
,Jun 19, 2019
A new study of the use of capital punishment in Los Angeles has concluded that, throughout the a…
Innocence
,Feb 23, 2024
This month, DPIC celebrates Black History Month with weekly profiles of notable Black Americans whose work affected the modern death penalty era. The third in this series is former Dallas Count…
Arbitrariness
,New Voices
,Jul 15, 2019
Rick Unklesbay served as a prosecutor in the Pima County Attorney’s Office in …
Juveniles
,Representation
,Jul 13, 2020
NEWS (7/9/20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court upheld the conviction and death sentence of Troy Merck, Jr. Merck had argued that his l…
Lethal Injection
,Mar 11, 2021
Five civil rights organizations have asked a California appeals court to block the efforts of three county district attorneys to lift stays of execution agreed to by the state as part of a federal-court settlement of death-row pri…
Costs
,Innocence
,Apr 29, 2021
As a state legislator in 1981, Jim Petro (pictured) supported a bill to reinstate Ohio’s death penalty after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s previous capital punishment statute. Later, as Ohio Attor…
Prosecutorial Accountability
,Jan 31, 2024
In a new article from Bolts, journalist Daniel Nichanian writes about the dearth of candidates in Ohio’s county prosecutor elections. “Of …
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Mar 17, 2021
More than a dozen former Alabama prosecutors, judges, and state bar presidents have filed briefs in a Birmingham court calling for a new trial for Alabama death-row prisoner Toforest Johnson (pictured, center, wit…
Victims' Families
,New Voices
,Federal Death Penalty
,Nov 13, 2019
Hundreds of former state and federal judges, prosecutors, law enforcement and corrections officials, and family members of homicide victims have signed on to a series of letters urging the federal government to halt the five federal executions sch…
Costs
,New Voices
,Nov 05, 2019
The prosecutor who sent Thomas Creech, Idaho’s longest-serving death-row prisoner, to jail 37 years ago now says that Creech and others sentenced to death in the Gem State should not be executed.Jim Harris …
Sentencing Alternatives
,Victims' Families
,Nov 08, 2019
On March 16, 2017, saying that capital punishment is “not in the best interests of this community or in the best interests of justice,” Orange/Osceola County (FL) state prosecutor Aramis Ayala announced that her o…
Costs
,Oct 30, 2020
To rein in the social and economic costs caused by the overly aggressive use of the death penalty by prosecutors, a California legal scholar is proposing a plan he believes will reduce miscarriages of justice and increase prosecutorial accountabil…
Innocence
,International
,Representation
,Upcoming Executions
,Conditions on Death Row
,Mar 02, 2022
Lawyers for Texas death-row prisoner Melissa Lucio (pictured) have moved to vacate her April 27, 2022 execution date and remove the judge and district attorney in her case because of conflicts of interest stemming…
Recent Legislative Activity
,May 19, 2021
A bill to abolish Nevada’s death penalty died without a vote in the state senate after Governor Steve Sisolak (pictured) declared on May 13, 2021 that “there is no path forward” to ban the practice. Shortly therea…
New Voices
,Apr 14, 2020
In the April 2020 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Denver District Attorney Beth McCann (pictured) speaks with Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham about Colorado’s repeal of capital punishme…
Race
,Feb 28, 2024
A new report from the Texas Defender Service (TDS) titled “Arbitrary and Capricious: Examining Racial Disparities in Harris County’s Pursuit of Death Sentences” was published on February 22, 2024 and is the latest in series of TDS reports on use o…
Intellectual Disability
,Feb 06, 2020
NEWS (2/6/20): Sonny Boy Oats will come off Florida’s death row after 39 years, prosecutors announced on February 6. Oats was convicted and sentenced to death in Marion County in 1981. His lawyers have argued that executing Oats w…
Arbitrariness
,Race
,Representation
,New Voices
,Jul 18, 2019
Citing race disparities, ineffective representation by court-appointed lawyers, and arbitrary case outcomes, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office has asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to strike down the …
Apr 20, 2022
Days after his office asked to set an execution date for Texas death row prisoner John Ramirez, Nueces County District Attorney Mark Gonzalez (pictured) asked Ramirez’s trial court to withdraw the…
Recent Legislative Activity
,New Voices
,Feb 04, 2020
Calling the death penalty “a failed government program,” 21 current and former Virginia prosecutors have signed on to a letter to the commonwealth’s General Assembly urging the legislature to abolish capital punishment. The letter was signed by fo…
