Death Penalty News

23-hour solitary confinement. 115-degree heat. Jimmie Duncan is haunted by the decades he spent in Louisiana’s Angola Prison—and how, even after being released, he still isn’t truly free. Jimmie “Chris” Duncan wiped the sweat off his forehead as he assessed his temporary home from the parking lot of a rundown motel in central Louisiana. Sure, there’s drug dealing and prostitution, he said on a recent summer afternoon. And he suspected his neighbors were cooking meth on a floor below the room he paid $350 a week to rent.

Two for­mer California death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers, Ernest Dykes and Curtis Ervin , have filed law­suits against Alameda County, accus­ing the District Attorney’s office of ​“set[ting] out to rig the juries” in their cap­i­tal cas­es. Both men were released from prison after their death sen­tences were reduced because of the dis­cov­ery of uncon­sti­tu­tion­al pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct dur­ing each of their jury selec­tions in the 1990s. The law­suits allege that the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office (ACDAO) had a long-stand­ing prac­tice of engag­ing in racial dis­crim­i­na­tion dur­ing jury selec­tion in cap­i­tal cas­es. ​“The evi­dence shows that the errors were com­mit­ted know­ing­ly and not in iso­la­tion, but rather, borne from the prod­uct of a pat­tern and prac­tice rein­forced by those with super­vi­so­ry author­i­ty with­in the ACDAO,” the suits state. Both law­suits accuse the ACDAO of vio­lat­ing the men’s right to a fair tri­al by uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly...

Adding a compensation clause to the Road Transport Act will help victims avoid a long-drawn-out civil suit, minister says There is no necessity to introduce the death penalty into the Road Transport Act 1987 for driving under the influence, according to Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke. Loke said existing laws were sufficient to prosecute serious offences and that offenders could still be charged under Section 302 of the Penal Code for murder, where applicable.

DPI’s ​“What to Know” series exam­ines cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment from mul­ti­ple angles, one top­ic at a time. Each install­ment pro­vides essen­tial facts and data on spe­cif­ic aspects of the death penal­ty. This install­ment looks at the costs asso­ci­at­ed with pur­suit of death sen­tences and executions. Why it mat­ters: The ques­tion at the heart of this issue is whether the assumed ben­e­fits of the death penal­ty are worth its costs and whether oth­er sys­tems might pro­vide sim­i­lar ben­e­fits at less cost. "It is a sim­ple fact that seek­ing the death penal­ty is more expen­sive. There is not one cred­i­ble study, to our knowl­edge, that presents evi­dence to the contrary." —  From An Analysis of the Economic Costs of Capital Punishment in Oklahoma, Prepared for the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission, 2017

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.

Shizuoka – Iwao Hakamada, a former death row inmate who was acquitted in a retrial for the 1966 murder of a family in Shizuoka Prefecture, on Thursday filed a damages lawsuit against the central and prefectural governments. Hakamata, 89, sought some ¥600 million in damages, a record amount against the government in a suit over a retrial case. He pursued the responsibilities of police, public prosecutors and courts. His complaint says that investigative authorities intentionally failed to record pertinent facts and evidence, instead concealing them. Despite knowing that police had fabricated evidence, public prosecutors went ahead and charged Hakamada, it says. It further claims that courts failed to explore the possibility of evidence fabrication.

There is a com­mon­ly held belief that use of the death penal­ty is always sup­port­ed by the friends and fam­i­lies who have lost loved ones to vio­lence. Prosecutors and elect­ed offi­cials often argue that only the death penal­ty will bring them the clo­sure and jus­tice they deserve. Family mem­bers are invit­ed to wit­ness exe­cu­tions in cap­i­tal cas­es on the the­o­ry that doing so will help meet their needs for ret­ri­bu­tion and closure.  While this feel­ing may be true for some , oth­ers feel dif­fer­ent­ly, includ­ing some who oppose the death penal­ty in all circumstances.

A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world's longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded more than 217 million yen in compensation, an official said Tuesday. The payout represents 12,500 yen for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others.

As scientific and technological progress continues, many prisoners may benefit from these advancements. However, many legal procedural barriers continue to block prisoners from accessing DNA evidence that has the potential to exonerate them. Death-sentenced prisoners with credible evidence of innocence have gained significant attention this month with the execution of Marcellus Williams in Missouri, the near-execution of Robert Roberson in Texas, and the U.S. Supreme Court arguments in Glossip v. Oklahoma . There is a common misconception that DNA evidence is widely available in all cases and central to exonerations, but the reality is that DNA exonerations in death penalty cases are relatively rare.

World's longest-serving death row inmate mulls suing govt after acquittal A lawyer for the world’s longest-serving death row inmate — who was acquitted in a Japanese retrial last week of a 1966 quadruple murder — said that the defence team is considering filing a damage suit against the government over the fabrication of evidence that ruined the man’s life and his mental health by keeping him in prison for 48 years. Iwao Hakamada, an 88-year-old former boxer, was found not guilty last week by the Shizuoka District Court which concluded that police and prosecutors collaborated in fabricating and planting evidence against him. The court said he was forced into confession by violent, hours-long closed interrogations.

ORLANDO  |  In its 111-year history, investigations and former students accounts have chronicled how the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys both in Marianna and Okeechobee were not so much a reform school but rather a place where physical, sexual and mental abuse was rampant.  In June, Gov. Ron DeSantis quietly signed a bill — without any press present and with only a handful of Dozier survivors and three representatives who sponsored HB 21 — in which the state will divide $20 million in compensation between those who attended the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in North Florida between 1940 and 1975, as well as the Okeechobee School. 

An Oklahoma city has agreed to pay more than $7 million to a former death row inmate who was exonerated after nearly 50 years in prison, making him the longest-serving inmate to be declared innocent of a crime.  The Edmond City Council voted without comment on Monday to settle the lawsuit filed by Glynn Ray Simmons, 71, against the Oklahoma City suburb and a former police detective for $7.15 million. 

FOUR convicted killers housed in the condemned section of the Port of Spain prison at Frederick Street for decades have had their death sentences vacated. In declaring that any attempt to carry out the death sentence on the four would be in contravention of their constitutional rights, Justice Margaret Mohammed ordered that they be immediately removed from death row. She also ordered that the four be resentenced by a judge in the Criminal Assizes.

Idaho will once again pursue executing an inmate for the 1st time in almost a decade. The state’s parole board backed reducing a convicted killer’s death sentence to life in prison, but Gov. Brad Little immediately rejected their recommendation. The Commission of Pardons and Parole announced the ruling Thursday evening on its website, ending a month of speculation over the fate of double-murderer Gerald Pizzuto. It was just the second time the state’s parole board had recommended clemency for a death row inmate since the state reinstituted capital punishment in 1977. The seven-member board voted 4-3 in favor of recommending clemency, according to Little in a statement. Such deliberations are held behind closed doors and normally restricted from public release, per state law. “The severity of Pizzuto’s brutal, senseless and indiscriminate killing spree strongly warrants against commutation,” Little said in the statement. “Therefore, I respectfully deny the commission’s recommendation so...

A South Carolina lawmaker wants the state to pay for those people it wrongfully executes, beginning with the family of George Stinney. A bill filed in the House of Representatives ahead of the upcoming legislative session would establish the George Stinney Fund, which would provide $10 million to families of those exonerated after being executed, no matter how much time has lapsed. The bill is named for the 14-year-old Black teen convicted in the brutal murder of 2 White girls in Clarendon County and executed by electrocution in June 1944 . RELATED |  He was 14 years, 6 months and 5 days old -- and the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th Century A judge vacated Stinney’s conviction in 2014, finding numerous instances of his constitutional rights being violated, from his arrest to an hours-long trial and conviction by an all-White jury only months after the girls were found dead. “We can’t do justice, because justice would be us resurrecting Mr. Stinney and all...

Fred Guttenberg, the father of a Parkland school shooting victim, said he wants to see Nikolas Cruz "removed from this earth the fastest way possible" as the 23-year-old waits for a jury to sentence him early next year. Guttenberg said that result could come "through a death penalty conviction or time in a prison with a general population," he told CNN on Monday. "But he serves no useful purpose, and I'd like to be able to move on from ever thinking of him again." Last month, Cruz pleaded guilty to killing 17 people during a 2018 shooting spree at his former high school in Parkland, Florida, in what became the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history. His guilty plea to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder means 12 jurors will decide whether he gets the death penalty or life in prison without parole. Jury selection is scheduled to begin January 4. Last week, the families of dozens of Parkland shooting victims reached a record $13...

Death-row exoneree Robert DuBoise is suing the City of Tampa, four Tampa police officers, and the forensic odontologist who falsely testified against him, alleging that they fabricated evidence that led to his wrongful conviction and death sentence.  DuBoise was exonerated in August 2020 after a Conviction Integrity Unit reviewed his case and new DNA evidence excluded him as the perpetrator of the rape and murder for which he was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death 37 years earlier.  DuBoise’s conviction was based on junk-science bite-mark evidence and false testimony from a prison informant. DuBoise’s attorney, Dan Marshall of the Human Rights Defense Center, said, “This case is a prime example of what can go wrong when the police do not use proper procedures. An innocent man goes to jail for decades.” The lawsuit alleges that four officers who were involved in the original investigation conspired with Dr. Richard Souviron, the forensic odontologist, to present fabric...

A man exonerated after nearly a decade in prison will receive more than $400,000 from the Maryland Board of Public Works. Kirk Bloodsworth was convicted of rape and murder in 1985 before DNA evidence exonerated him nine years later.  The now 60-year-old will be the 1st to receive a payment as part of a new program that began in July and targets people who were wrongly convicted, according to The Washington Post. The law requires that the wrongfully convicted person's payment equal the 5-year average of the state's median annual income for each year the person was imprisoned.  It also allows affected people who were compensated before July 1, 2005, to request more funds from the state. Following his release and a pardon from Maryland's then-Gov. William Donald Schaefer (D), Bloodsworth, who was the first death row inmate freed using DNA-based evidence, was paid $300,000 in 1994 for his wrongful conviction, the Post reported. The new system's calculation would have entitl...

Two men exonerated from death row, one in Ohio and one in Oklahoma, have received million -dollar payouts for their wrongful convictions and death sentences. Both were tried and convicted in counties with long histories of prosecutorial misconduct and high rates of wrongful capital convictions. The compensation comes more than a decade after each was released from incarceration. In early September 2021, former death-row prisoner Robert Miller reached a $2 million settlement with Oklahoma City for his wrongful conviction and death sentence for the rape and murder of two elderly women in Oklahoma County in 1988. He is one of five death-row exonerations in the county, the fourth most in the nation since the death penalty was reestablished in the U.S. in the 1970s. One week earlier, on August 30, 2021, the Ohio Controlling Board voted unanimously to award Cleveland death-row exoneree Joe D’Ambrosio $1 million in compensation from the state’s wrongful imprisonment fund for his wrongful conv...

Sabrina Butler-Smith, 50, from Mississippi, was branded a 'child killer' and had to fight other inmates in prison before she was finally exonerated of killing her son Walter A mother spent almost 3 years on death row before she was finally exonerated of killing her baby son. Sabrina Butler-Smith was just 17-years-old when she came back from a run to find her boy Walter dead in their apartment in Columbus, Mississippi. Despite insisting her innocence, prosecutors claimed she beat her child to death and a jury found her guilty of murder. It took Sabrina 5 years to prove her son’s injuries were likely caused by her CPR efforts and that he probably died from an pre-existing health issue. She was exonerated in 1995 but is still haunted by her time in prison, where she was branded a ‘child killer’ and had to fight other inmates. Sabrina, 50, told The Mirror: “When I arrived at death row, a guard said to me ‘you are going to die here’. “They put me in a little room smaller than my bat...