Death Penalty News

WILMINGTON, Del. — More than three decades after Jermaine “Marlow” Wright was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in a case with no physical evidence tying him to the crime and evidence favorable to his defense withheld by prosecutors, a Delaware court has issued him a Certificate of Innocence and ordered his 1992 murder conviction expunged. The Death Penalty Information Center identified Wright as the 203rd person exonerated from death row in the United States since 1973 and the second person exonerated from Delaware’s death row. Superior Court Judge Calvin Scott issued the order July 23, according to the organization.

An Arkansas man was released from prison Friday after serving more than three decades for a murder he said he did not commit. Charlie Vaughn had been incarcerated since 1991 for the 1988 murder, rape, and burglary of 81-year-old Myrtle Holmes.  DNA testing conducted in 1989 had excluded Vaughn as the source of the sexual assault, but he was charged anyway and later pleaded guilty to first-degree murder to avoid the death penalty, despite no physical evidence linking him to the crime.

BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri man convicted of breaking into a woman’s home and repeatedly stabbing her was executed Tuesday over the objections of the victim’s family and the prosecutor, who wanted the death sentence commuted to life in prison. Marcellus Williams, 55, was convicted in the 1998 killing of Lisha Gayle, who was stabbed during the burglary of her suburban St. Louis home.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Marcellus Williams thought the DNA evidence was enough to remove him from Missouri’s death row, perhaps even him from prison. A decades-old mistake by a prosecutor’s office has kept his life hanging in the balance. Williams, 55, is scheduled to be executed on Sept. 24 for the 1998 stabbing death of Lisha Gayle in the St. Louis suburb of University City. St. Louis County Circuit Judge Bruce Hilton on Wednesday will preside over an evidentiary hearing challenging Williams’ guilt. But the key piece of evidence to support Williams is DNA testing that is no longer viable.

The State Supreme Court said the trial had to hold a hearing before accepting a deal that would give the man a sentence of life without parole. In a suburban St. Louis courtroom on Wednesday, it appeared that Marcellus Williams would be spared execution after the local prosecutor’s office raised questions about his guilt and agreed to a prison sentence of life without parole .

A Missouri inmate convicted of fatally stabbing a woman in 1998 will avoid the death penalty and instead be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, prosecutors said on Wednesday, after DNA testing of the murder weapon did not match him. Marcellus Williams, 55, who had been scheduled to be put to death next month, will enter what is known as an "Alford plea" to a first-degree murder charge on Thursday as part of a deal with prosecutors that vacates his original conviction.

On April 18, 2024, the Arkansas Supreme Court decided 4-3 to reverse a 2022 lower court decision and allow genetic testing of crime scene evidence from the 1993 killing of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis. The three men convicted in 1994 for the killings were released in 2011 after taking an Alford plea, in which they maintained their innocence but plead guilty to the crime, in exchange for 18 years’ time served and 10 years of a suspended sentence. 

North Carolina hasn't executed anyone since 2006, when lawsuits put executions here on hold. In close to half of the states in the United States, the death penalty is written into law. So it came as a surprise to some when the man accused of shooting a child in the head accepted a plea that sentenced him to life in prison without parole. In fact, North Carolina hasn't executed anyone since 2006, when lawsuits put executions here on hold.

A Harrisburg, Pennsylvania trial court has granted the application of the Dauphin County District Attorney’s office to withdraw all charges against Samuel Randolph, IV, completing his exoneration of a double murder that sent him to Pennsylvania’s death row in 2003. On April 6, 2022, two days after the U.S. Supreme Court had declined to review the county prosecutors’ appeal of a federal court ruling granting Randolph a new trial, District Attorney Fran Chardo filed a motion to enter an order of nolle prosequi terminating the prosecution of Mr. Randolph. Chardo refused to concede Randolph’s innocence, saying that “retrial is not in the public interest at this time” because “[t]he police affiant and the police detective who handled the evidence collection in this case have both died” and “[o]ther witnesses have become unavailable for other reasons.” A federal district court overturned Randolph’s conviction on May 27, 2020, holding that the trial court had violated his Sixth Amendment rig...

Did you know the death penalty is one of the most expensive parts of our criminal justice system? It’s okay if you didn’t — you’re not alone. Support for the death penalty is dwindling and has been for years. Among those that continue to cling to this policy, many will assert the falsehood that capital punishment saves taxpayer dollars. I used to be one of them. It just seemed natural that executing someone would be cheaper than paying to house and feed them for the rest of their lives. That isn’t to suggest this was my main reason for supporting the death penalty, but it was an assumed fact that backed up other false notions I had on the system. In reality, we spend up to 10 times more for the death penalty than we do on the next most expensive sentence, which is life in prison without parole (LWOP). Typically, a death penalty supporter will respond to this data with an assertion that the death penalty takes too long to carry out, and that’s why it’s so much m...

Courts found blatant racism was key factor in Johnny Lee Gates’ conviction After 43 years in prison — more than 25 years of that on death row — Johnny Lee Gates walked out of custody on Friday a free man. Gates was convicted during a 1977 trial of the rape, armed robbery and murder of a 19-year-old German immigrant who’d moved to Columbus 12 days earlier to be with her husband, a soldier at Fort Benning. But Gates’ lawyers later showed that prosecutors used blatant race discrimination during jury selection and persuaded the Georgia Supreme Court to grant Gates a new trial based on newly discovered DNA evidence. “I’ve fought for 43 years for this day,” Gates said. “I always had faith it would come, even when others weren’t sure. I am an innocent man. I did not commit this crime. What happened to me is something that should never happen to any person. But I am not bitter. I thank God that I am here, and I am happy to be free.” On Friday, Gates entered what’s called an ...

After 35 years, two death sentences and a thrown-out conviction, a case comes to an end. BROOKSVILLE — Paul Hildwin waited for nearly 35 years. He waited in jail and then prison and then jail again. He waited for, and then survived, a death warrant. He got cancer twice. He got sick of the iron and concrete surrounding him. He got a back tattoo of skulls and tombstones arranged in what he called a gateway to “my own living hell.” In 1996, ten years after a Hernando County jury sentenced him to death in the killing of 42-year-old Vronzettie Cox, he got a resentencing hearing. But that ended in yet another death sentence, and so he waited for death, until in 2014 the Florida Supreme Court overturned his sentence and gave him something else to wait for: A new trial and, maybe, the chance to feel grass beneath his feet again. He stopped waiting Monday. The new trial was set to begin that morning, but instead, he accepted a deal: He pleaded no-contest to second-degree murd...

Ray Spencer, center, with his son, Matt Spencer, and his daughter, Katie Spencer Tetz. (Esquire) What is it like to have a family member murdered and find out the wrong person went to prison? What is it like to be a rape victim who later discovers you identified the wrong man in a police lineup? We felt that such individuals would have unique feelings about the criminal justice system, and the initiative led to a couple of short pieces . But in the Ray Spencer case there was a twist: The victims were not victims at all. Ray was convicted of sexually assaulting his children in 1985 and served 19 years in prison. Not long after he was released, his children began working to clear his name. ON CHRISTMAS EVE IN 2004, Katie Spencer Tetz, a twenty-five-year-old job recruiter living in Sacramento, California, was sitting on the floor near her Christmas tree, wrapping gifts, when the phone rang. It was her mother, DeAnne, with news: After nineteen years, Katie's father, Ra...

Little Rock, Arkansas, April 14, 2017 State officials challenged one order Saturday and vowed to fight the other. The rally was attended by actor Johnny Depp and by Damien Echols, who spent almost 18 years on Arkansas' death row. Arkansas has said this scheduled is needed because one of its lethal drugs will expire at the end of the month. The inmates challenged the state's unprecedented plan, arguing the hasty timetable and the drug used to perform the execution amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. But more recently, capital punishment has been stalled in Arkansas because of drug shortages and legal challenges. Legal battles had prevented any executions in the state in the last 12 years. The attorney general plans to appeal Griffen's order as well. All of the inmates are men, and all were convicted of capital murder. The state Supreme Court on Friday granted a stay of execution on 1 of the 7, and an 8th inmate whom the state planned to exe...