- Death Penalty FOCUS

Federal judge rejects Kenneth Smith’s request to stop his execution by nitrogen gas

January 10, 2024

U.S. District Judge R. Austin Huffaker rejected Kenneth Smith’s request for an injunction to stop Alabama from executing him with nitrogen gas late last month, making his execution, scheduled for January 25, more likely, although the constitutionality of using nitrogen gas in state killing could be raised in the U.S. Supreme Court. No other state has ever attempted to kill a person using nitrogen gas, although Oklahoma and Mississippi have

Florida prosecutor seeks death penalty in sex abuse case in a test of a new state law

December 30, 2023

Florida prosecutor seeks death penalty in sex abuse case in a test of a new state law A Florida prosecutor announced late last month that he will seek the death penalty in a child sexual assault case. The indictment is a test of a new state law that allows a person convicted of the rape of a minor to be sentenced to death. In a statement on his website, State

TCADP year-end report calls attention to Texas’s “continued outlier status”

December 20, 2023

“Texas remained an unfortunate outlier as just one of five states to carry out executions in 2023, leading the nation with eight people put to death this year,” the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty stated in its annual report, “Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2023: The Year in Review.” The report noted that the majority of the eight men killed by the state in 2023 had “significant intellectual

Webinar On-Demand: Making a Murderer: False Confessions, Wrongful Convictions

December 20, 2023

Our conversation on “Making a Murderer: False Confessions, Wrongful Convictions” was such an enlightening discussion between DPF President Mike Farrell and Dr. Richard Leo, Professor of Law and Social Psychology at the University of San Francisco School of Law. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQhfA9_yW54&t=42s Quick Facts Since 1989 there have been at least 3,431 exonerations. Fully 13% of these – 434 cases – contained false confessions or admissions. That percentage soars to 23% in

DPIC releases its 2023 Year-End Report

December 9, 2023

2023 was the ninth consecutive year that fewer than 30 people were executed in the United States, and fewer than 50 people were sentenced to death, the Death Penalty Information Center states in its 2023 annual report. Twenty-nine states — the majority — have either “abolished the death penalty or paused them by executive action,” according to DPIC. And only five states, Alabama, Florida, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas, conducted executions,

Alabama releases new details about its plan to use nitrogen gas in its executions

December 9, 2023

Earlier this week, the Alabama Department of Corrections released additional details about its plan to become the first state to use nitrogen hypoxia in state killings. The Alabama Supreme Court ruled in October that the state attorney general could proceed with his plan to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith with nitrogen gas in a 6-2 decision by the all-Republican court. In their post in Substack, Lauren Gill and Dan Moritz-Rabson report

Alabama executes Casey McWhorter by lethal injection; state SC gives the go-ahead to use nitrogen gas in future executions

November 20, 2023

Alabama executed Casey McWhorter earlier this month. He was convicted and sentenced to die in 1994 for the robbery and murder of Edward Lee Williams in 1993. McWhorter was one of three teenagers, one of whom was Williams’ son, charged with the murder. But he was the only one sentenced to death because he was the only defendant who was 18 at the time of the crime. The other two,

While we’re on the subject. . .

November 20, 2023

“Whether you support capital punishment or oppose it, one thing is clear. Oklahoma’s system is so fundamentally flawed that we cannot know that someone who has been condemned to death actually deserves the ultimate penalty,” writes former U.S. Judge Andy Lester in a letter to the editor in nondoc.com. Lester was one of three co-chairs of the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission that, in 2017, called for a moratorium on

In brief: November 2023

November 20, 2023

In South Carolina, executions are on hold until at least February, when the supreme court will hold a hearing over a lawsuit filed by four people on death row who argue that electrocution and firing squad are unconstitutional methods of execution, WIS10 reports. The state’s default method of execution is the electric chair but offers the option of a firing squad or lethal injection if the drugs are available, according

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Federal judge rejects Kenneth Smith’s request to stop his execution by nitrogen gas

Florida prosecutor seeks death penalty in sex abuse case in a test of a new state law

TCADP year-end report calls attention to Texas’s “continued outlier status”

Webinar On-Demand: Making a Murderer: False Confessions, Wrongful Convictions

DPIC releases its 2023 Year-End Report

Alabama releases new details about its plan to use nitrogen gas in its executions

Alabama executes Casey McWhorter by lethal injection; state SC gives the go-ahead to use nitrogen gas in future executions

While we’re on the subject. . .

In brief: November 2023

Together we can end the death penalty