“We will now reverse the district court’s denial of appointed counsel and expert funding . . . vacate its factual findings relating to Panetti’s competency,
The U.S. Supreme Court sent a condemned Alabama inmate’s case back to a lower court late last month because he did not have access to
After a three-and-a-half-year hiatus, Ohio is again free to tinker with the machinery of death. Ohio has not executed anyone since January 2014, when Dennis
In Florida, the Palm Beach Post reports that Gov. Rick Scott has scheduled the first execution date for an inmate since the U.S. Supreme Court’s January
Criminal attorney (and DPF board member) Robert M. Sanger’s article in the current Criminal Law Bulletin, “Duties of Capital Trial Counsel Under the California ‘Death
“Marie is one of the unsung heroes from the early years of the fight against the modern death penalty. [Her] work on death row took a
William Morva was executed last night, July 6, in the Commonwealth of Virginia, for killing two people, a security guard and a sheriff’s deputy,
Rachel Sutphin, the daughter of Eric Sutphin, the sheriff’s deputy who was one of the two people William Morva killed in 2006, is asking Virginia
Two human rights experts at the United Nations are adding their voices to the thousands of people who have written, called, and tweeted Virginia Gov.
A Kentucky Circuit Judge ruled last week that it is unconstitutional to sentence to death a defendant who is under the age of 21. He issued his decision after attorneys for Travis Bredhold, who is accused of killing a gas station attendant when he was just over the age of 18, asked him to exclude the death penalty when he goes to trial. “Retribution is not proportional if the law’s
After an 18-month hiatus following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Hurst v. Florida decision, Florida is gearing up to begin executions again. Yesterday, the Florida Supreme Court issued an opinion in Hitchcock v. Florida that could affect several other death penalty cases that have been on hold pending the resolution of this one. In a brief decision, the court rejected the plaintiff’s seven arguments that his death sentence was unconstitutional because it
Ohio executed its first inmate in three-and-a-half years late last month, using a new three-drug protocol, including midazolam, rocuronium bromide, and potassium chloride. Forty-five-year-old Ronald Phillips was put to death for the rape and murder of Sheila Marie Evans in 1993. Akron Beacon Journal reporter Jim Mackinnon, who witnessed the execution, reported that Phillips apologized to his victims’ family members, who were present, saying “I’m sorry to each and every
“There is no justification for executing the insane, and no reasoned support for it, as only a glance at the brief of amici—filed by able and fervent citizens spanning the spectrum of political views—will confirm.” So wrote the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in its ruling last month that sent the case of Scott Panetti, a mentally ill man who was sentenced to death in 1995 in Texas,
In Texas, TaiChin Preyor was executed late last month, after his appeal was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court. Preyor, who was convicted of the murder of 24-year-old Jami Tackett in 2004 during a drug deal, had appealed his conviction on the grounds that his lawyer had never tried a murder case in Texas before, and relied on Wikipedia for research. This was the fifth execution in Texas this year.
“To spend 20 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, and emerge with his humanity and dignity intact … to spend 20 years, day in and day out, fighting for his freedom, it was just so extraordinary. It was totally compelling.”
A petition drive that was started by five men exonerated from Ohio’s death row culminated today with the delivery of 100 thousand signatures to the office of Ohio Gov. John Kasich, asking him to block the execution of Ron Phillips this Wednesday, July 26. Ohioans to Stop Executions delivered the petitions, which were signed by a former prison warden, faith leaders, murder victims’ family members, corrections officials, and citizens. Two
A diverse group of death penalty opponents held a news conference at the state capitol in Ohio on Wednesday to ask Gov. John Kasich to call off the scheduled execution of Ronald Phillips next Wednesday. The Columbus Dispatch reports that a group that included faith leaders, a retired appeals court judge who chaired the state’s task force on the death penalty, corrections officials, and death row exonerees delivered a petition
Scharlette Holdman, who died last week, was renowned in the criminal justice world as one of the foremost death penalty mitigation specialists in the country. “What she saw is that killers are not just born. They have had unbelievably abused and neglectful lives, and that history is relevant,” death penalty lawyer George Kendall told the Marshall Project. Much like Marie Deans, another well-known mitigation specialist (we interviewed her biographer, Todd