Death Penalty News

An autopsy of Richard Djerf, the most recent inmate executed by the state, showed the medical staff of the Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation & Reentry ran into trouble in properly laying IV lines, with one needle failing to puncture a vein and leaving fluid in the surrounding tissue.  Difficulty with setting IV lines is not new in the state, as medical teams in the majority of inmates executed between 2010 and 2025 struggled to properly insert IVs in both arms and resorted to insertion in places like the hand, or the femoral artery, located near the groin. 

A Tennessee man who said he was “hurting so bad” during his lethal injection this week for the 1980s killings of his girlfriend and her two young daughters was not shocked by his implanted defibrillator, his attorney said Friday. Kelley Henry, the federal public defender for Byron Black, said her team received an initial evaluation of the data from his implantable cardioverter defibrillator. The ICD information eliminates one possible cause for Black's comment about pain during his execution Tuesday, and other actions such as when he picked his head up off the gurney and groaned, she said. But many questions remain unanswered, she said.

Wrongful convictions by 2 discredited Mississippi experts tops at least 10. A victim’s family in Louisiana is now speaking out.  Prosecutors fighting the release of death row inmate Jimmie Duncan after a judge found him “factually innocent” of raping and murdering 23-month-old Haley Oliveaux are “not speaking for Haley’s family,” her mother says.  Speaking publicly for the 1st time, Allison Layton Statham called for Duncan to go free in a July 22 bail hearing. “This innocent man is on death row,” she told Mississippi Today. “Justice needs to be done.”  In April, a judge threw out Duncan’s conviction, questioning their conclusions and citing the failures of his court-appointed counsel.

In this month’s pod­cast episode of 12:01 The Death Penalty in Context, DPIC’s Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Sam Levin, a cor­re­spon­dent with The Guardian who cov­ers crim­i­nal jus­tice and the legal sys­tem, and Jimmy Jenkins, a crim­i­nal jus­tice reporter for The Arizona Republic , about the chal­lenges they encounter when report­ing on the increas­ing secre­tive use of the death penal­ty. Mr. Jenkins has wit­nessed exe­cu­tions in Arizona and Mr. Levin has recent­ly inves­ti­gat­ed South Carolina’s return to exe­cu­tions after a 13-year pause.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina man sent to death row twice for separate murders is scheduled to die Friday by lethal injection in the state’s sixth execution in nine months. Stephen Stanko, 57, is being killed for shooting a friend and then cleaning out his bank account in Horry County in 2005. Hours earlier Stanko killed his live-in girlfriend, strangling her as he raped her teenage daughter in the woman’s home in neighboring Georgetown County. He slit the teen’s throat but she survived. Stanko also ended up on death row for that crime.

When the 3 executioners fired their high-powered rifles at him, Mikal Mahdi, who was sentenced to death for the execution-style murder of an Orangeburg police officer, yelled. Over the next 80 seconds he moaned twice more before drawing his final, gasping breath.  Protocol required the executioners to aim for Mahdi’s heart. But despite 3 shots, an autopsy revealed only partial damage to his heart and just 2 bullet entry wounds. This is proof, say lawyers for a man facing execution Friday, that only 2 bullets were fired and both missed their mark. 

Tennessee will execute Oscar Franklin Smith this week while a lawsuit challenging the state’s new lethal injection protocol makes its way through the court system. There was a possibility of the Thursday execution being called off. Anti-death penalty advocates and attorneys for Smith spent weeks asking Gov. Bill Lee to halt capital punishment until the court ruled whether the protocol is constitutional, which could take until at least January 2026.  On Tuesday morning, Smith’s attorneys announced Lee had denied the reprieve. An anonymous executioner will inject Smith, who was convicted of murdering his wife Judith Smith and her two sons Jason Burnett and Chad Burnett in 1989, with a lethal dose of pentobarbital at 10 a.m. He will be the first person in Tennessee put to death using this method.

After claims were made by executed inmate Mikal Madhi's lawyers, lawmakers are looking for answers. COLUMBIA, S.C. — An upstate lawmaker is calling for an investigation into South Carolina's most recent death penalty case. Mikal Mahdi was executed by firing squad last month, the second time in the state's history. Rep. Neal Collins (R) - Pickens County, was one of two lawmakers who sent a letter to state leaders, urging them to look into the firing squad method. He says there is no way to investigate the deaths afterward.

Death row inmates can now choose whether to die by firing squad, lethal injection, or the electric chair, according to current state law. May 13, 2025 - Lawyers who represent the recently executed Mikal Mahdi are alleging that the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) “botched” their client’s firing squad execution, which caused him to scream out in pain and remain conscious for nearly one minute until he eventually died. RELATED |  South Carolina: Autopsy shows man executed by firing squad suffered for an extended period of time before dying because shooters missed his heart Mahdi, who was convicted of murdering a police officer and a convenience store worker, died on April 11 at age 42 in South Carolina’s second firing squad execution in the state’s history, both of which occurred this year just five weeks apart.

Mikal Mahdi was executed by a firing squad of three South Carolina Department of Corrections employees on April 11. An autopsy report shows that the bullets did not pierce his heart and likely caused the prisoner pain and suffering while he was still conscious. A South Carolina man executed last month by firing squad may have suffered for an extended period of time before dying because shooters largely missed his heart, an autopsy commissioned by the state shows. Mikal Mahdi died on April 11 after being shot by a three-person firing squad . But an autopsy revealed two wounds on his chest, not three. None of the bullets hit his heart directly, as is supposed to happen during the execution. Instead, the wounds caused damage to his liver and other internal organs, and allowed his heart to keep beating. Pathologists say the injuries likely caused the prisoner pain and suffering while he was still conscious.

Following a Verite News and ProPublica investigation, a district judge vacated the death sentence of Jimmie Duncan, whose 1998 murder conviction was based on allegedly fabricated bite mark analysis. It remains unclear if Duncan will walk free. A Louisiana judge this week set aside the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence of Jimmie Chris Duncan, whose 1998 conviction for killing his girlfriend’s 23-month-old daughter was based in part on bite mark evidence that experts now say is junk science . The decision comes after a Verite News and ProPublica investigation in March examined the questions surrounding Duncan’s conviction as Gov. Jeff Landry, a staunch death penalty advocate, made moves to expedite executions after a 15-year pause.

On March 14, 2025, a group of nine death row pris­on­ers in Tennessee filed a law­suit chal­leng­ing the state’s sole use of pen­to­bar­bi­tal in its revised lethal injec­tion pro­to­col, argu­ing it cre­ates a ​“high risk of a tor­tur­ous death.” In December 2024 , the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) com­plet­ed a mul­ti-year lethal injec­tion pro­to­col review and announced that instead of the pre­vi­ous three-drug pro­to­col, the state would shift to rely on just one drug: pen­to­bar­bi­tal.  Earlier this month, the Tennessee Supreme Court sched­uled exe­cu­tion dates for four indi­vid­u­als begin­ning in May 2025: Oscar Smith (May 22), Byron Black (August 5), Donald Middlebrooks (September 24), and Harold Nichols (December 11).

An autopsy report for a South Carolina man executed with the state’s lethal injection protocol raises more questions about whether the process is an unusually cruel and painful method of execution. Marion Bowman Jr. was executed on Jan. 31. The Dorchester County native, who was convicted of shooting and killing 21-year-old Kandee Martin in 2001, chose to die by lethal injection, which in South Carolina is carried out by a single drug, pentobarbital, a powerful sedative.  

A new book argues the way states perform executions is inhumane. Sierra Pfeifer sat down with its author to learn about the 'untold story' of lethal injection and Oklahoma’s role in how the condemned are executed. Lethal injection is the most common form of execution in the United States, designed to appear sterile, swift and humane. But as University of Richmond law professor Corinna Barrett Lain reveals in her forthcoming book, Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection , that perception is far from reality.

South Carolina plans to execute a man by firing squad on March 7, the first such execution in the state and the first in the nation in 15 years. But firearms experts are questioning whether South Carolina's indoor execution setup is safe for the workers who will shoot the prisoner and the people who will watch. Photos released by the South Carolina Department of Corrections show that the state intends to strap the prisoner, Brad Sigmon, to a metal seat in the same small, indoor brick death chamber where South Carolina has executed more than 40 other prisoners by electric chair and lethal injection since 1985.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCIV) — Attorneys for an inmate scheduled to be executed on March 7 filed a motion to halt proceedings to determine whether the information the state provides about its lethal injection drugs is sufficient. Lawyers for Brad Sigmon, 67, convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend's parents at their home in Greenville County, argued in a motion to South Carolina's Supreme Court that the state hasn't released enough details about the lethal injection drug to give a condemned prisoner sufficient information to select the least inhumane method of execution, which is guaranteed by state law.

Brad Sigmon, 67, is scheduled to be killed on March 7 A South Carolina death row inmate has chosen to be executed by a firing squad, which would make him only the fourth inmate in the U.S. to die by this execution method. Brad Sigmon, 67, who is scheduled to be killed on March 7, informed state officials on Friday that he wishes to die by firing squad rather than by lethal injection or the electric chair, citing, in part, the prolonged suffering the three inmates previously executed in the state had faced when they were killed by lethal injection.

A condemned man who is the next person scheduled to be put to death in South Carolina is again asking for his execution be postponed because his lawyers have not yet received the autopsy report from the last execution two weeks ago The state Supreme Court rejected a similar request earlier this month by Brad Sigmon. But his attorneys said in a motion Friday that the situation has become more urgent because he faces a Feb. 21 deadline to decide whether to die by lethal injection, firing squad or electric chair.

A federal judge heard testimony Tuesday about what happened during the nation’s first two nitrogen gas executions, weighing whether to allow Alabama to use that method again next month to put an inmate to death. Attorneys for Carey Dale Grayson are asking a federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction to block the prisoner's scheduled Nov. 21 execution with nitrogen gas.  The attorneys say Alabama officials must make changes to the procedure, adding in a court filing that state officials “have chosen to ignore clear and obvious signs the current protocol contains major problems.”

(NEW YORK) — Alabama is set to perform the second-ever nitrogen gas execution in the United States on Thursday. Alan Eugene Miller, 59, was sentenced to death for the 1999 murders of his then-coworkers Lee Holdbrooks and Christoper Scott Yancy, and his former supervisor Terry Lee Jarvis. Miller was to be executed in September 2022 via lethal injection, but it was called off after officials had trouble inserting an intravenous line to administer the fatal drugs and were concerned they would not be able to do so before the death warrant expired.