Death Penalty News

AUSTIN, Texas — Nearly three decades after Rodney Reed was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of Stacey Stites, prosecutors and law enforcement officials are urging Texas’ highest criminal court to fully examine new evidence they argue raises serious questions about his conviction before the state carries out an irreversible punishment. Fair and Just Prosecution, joined by the Law Enforcement Action Partnership and 29 current and former prosecutors and law enforcement officials, filed an amicus brief urging the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to fully review new evidence in Reed’s death penalty case, according to an FJP press release.

Judge finds sufficient evidence for jury to hear case LOS ANGELES — Prosecutors have presented sufficient evidence for the indie pop vocalist known as D4vd to stand trial on charges he fatally stabbed and dismembered a 14-year-old girl who threatened to expose their clandestine relationship, a Los Angeles judge ruled on Monday. Judge Charlaine Olmedo found there was probable cause for a jury to decide the fate of David Anthony Burke, 21, whose breakout major-label music success as a recording artist named D4vd (pronounced “David”) was cut short by his arrest last year. He spent five days in a packed downtown courtroom shackled to his seat as prosecutors presented graphic testimony and crime-scene photos in support of their case.

The decision affirms a lower court’s ruling nullifying Jimmie “Chris” Duncan’s 1998 first-degree murder conviction. Duncan was convicted based in part on forensic evidence that is now widely regarded as junk science. Former Louisiana death row inmate Jimmie “Chris” Duncan is officially a free man following a unanimous ruling Monday by the Louisiana Supreme Court. In the opinion, justices upheld a lower court’s decision to toss out Duncan’s 1998 conviction for killing his former girlfriend’s toddler, Haley Oliveaux, citing flawed forensics practices used to convict him. 

FLORIDA — The Florida Supreme Court has ordered additional DNA analysis in the decades-old death penalty case of James Duckett, a decision that could delay his execution further and renew questions about the conviction. Reporting from the Tampa Bay Times indicates the ruling comes more than a month after Duckett had been scheduled for execution in connection with the 1987 rape and murder of 11-year-old Teresa McAbee. Previous reporting by the Tampa Bay Times discussed how Duckett was convicted in 1988 in Lake County and has maintained his innocence for decades. The case has drawn increased scrutiny in recent months after a death warrant was issued and later paused amid ongoing disputes over DNA testing that defense attorneys argue could be critical to determining guilt or innocence.

Every Thursday at 9 a.m. when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals publishes its orders and opinions online, Melissa Lucio’s family, supporters and lawyers scan the court’s website for the death row inmate’s name. Caught between freedom and a potential execution for the last two years, waiting for every Thursday morning is all Lucio and her team can do. The 56-year-old, found guilty in 2008 of killing her 2-year-old daughter, Mariah Alvarez, has spent two of her 17 years on death row in a legal limbo as the CCA weighs a district judge’s 2024 recommendation to overturn her capital murder conviction because of withheld evidence. An additional ruling from the judge six months later declared Lucio “actually innocent” of killing Mariah.

Saturday April 25th is National DNA Day , mark­ing the anniver­sary of the 1953 dis­cov­ery of DNA’s dou­ble helix struc­ture and the 2003 com­ple­tion of the Human Genome Project. Today, the Death Penalty Information Center is pleased to present a new resource exam­in­ing the con­tro­ver­sial role of ​“junk sci­ence” in cap­i­tal cas­es. When DNA test­ing became one of the most rig­or­ous­ly val­i­dat­ed tools in foren­sic sci­ence, its devel­op­ment also prompt­ed greater scruti­ny of oth­er foren­sic tech­niques. Many dis­ci­plines that were long accept­ed in U.S. court­rooms have now been found to lack ade­quate sci­en­tif­ic foun­da­tion and have become known as ​“junk science.”

Lance Shockley died by lethal injection last year. State courts have rejected prisoners’ requests for DNA testing in recent years. Lance Shockley, a man on death row in Missouri, wanted items from the crime scene to undergo DNA testing to potentially prove his innocence. The court scheduled proceedings on his request — but the date set was for two days after his execution. Patty Prewitt can’t have her DNA tested — and fully clear her name — because her sentence was commuted and she is no longer in prison. And others, including Lamar McVay, who is serving 30 years for a robbery, can’t even get an answer from the state on his DNA testing request. He's still awaiting a ruling on a motion he filed in September 2022.

ORLANDO, Fla. (DPN) — A Florida judge has dashed the hopes of one of the nation’s longest-serving death row inmates, ruling Friday, March 6, that modern DNA evidence and forensic analysis are not enough to grant 80-year-old William “Tommy” Zeigler a new trial for a 50-year-old quadruple murder. In a sweeping 44-page order, Circuit Judge Patricia Strowbridge denied Zeigler’s motion, ending the latest chapter in a legal saga that began on a bloody Christmas Eve in 1975.  The judge concluded that while new forensic technology identified DNA from unidentified males on the victims' clothing, it did not provide the "clear and convincing" proof required to overturn a conviction.

Senate bill would reinstate death penalty in West Virginia  A bill moving in the West Virginia Senate would reinstate the death penalty for people convicted of 1t-degree murder and 1t-degree sexual abuse of children in the same proceeding.  The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Senate Bill 1037 Thursday afternoon.  The committee heard the testimony of Jackson County Sheriff Ross Mellinger about the 2016 sexual assault and murder of nine-month-old Emmaleigh Barringer. 

Months after a judge tossed out his 1998 murder conviction, Jimmie Duncan is free on bail. But prosecutors have asked the Louisiana Supreme Court to reinstate the death penalty for Duncan, even as the victim’s mother has come to support his release. Jimmie “Chris” Duncan walked out of the Ouachita Parish Correctional Center and into the arms of his parents last week after spending the last 27 years on death row.

On November 26, 2025, Jimmie Duncan was released on bail from Louisiana’s Angola prison after spend­ing 27 years on death row for a crime that a court now says nev­er occurred. Ouachita Parish District Attorney Robert Tew opposed Mr. Duncan’s release on bail and main­tains that he is guilty of rape and mur­der. Mr. Duncan’s attor­neys dis­pute this and say Judge Alvin Sharp’s bail rul­ing ​“acknowl­edged the clear and con­vinc­ing evi­dence show­ing Mr. Duncan is factually innocent.”

The case against Robert Roberson, whose execution is scheduled for Oct. 16, is the latest to raise questions about a controversial diagnosis. Robert Roberson faces execution in Texas on Oct. 16 for the 2002 murder of his young daughter, Nikki Curtis. For years, a growing pool of supporters — from the lead detective in his case to Dr. Phil — have argued Roberson is innocent. They say doctors and prosecutors blamed him for Nikki’s death through a faulty diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.

NEW YORK — Bestselling author John Grisham will release his new book SHAKEN: The Rush to Execute an Innocent Man on June 9, 2026. The nonfiction account centers on Texas death row prisoner Robert Roberson’s controversial conviction and impending execution, according to a press release from Doubleday. The announcement was made Wednesday by Grisham’s publisher, Suzanne Herz, who confirmed a printing of more than one million copies. While best known for his legal thrillers, Grisham has also been a longtime advocate for social justice. He has worked with organizations dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people, such as the Innocence Project and Centurion Ministries. Doubleday said this work inspired him to share stories of people unfairly accused of crimes.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A federal judge has ordered a new trial for an Alabama death row inmate after tests showed it was another man’s DNA on the victim’s body. Chief U.S. District Judge Emily C. Marks last week ruled that Christopher Barbour must get a new trial. Barbour, now 56, was convicted of the 1992 stabbing death of Thelma Bishop Roberts in Montgomery.  Barbour initially confessed that he killed Roberts after helping another man rape her, but he later recanted and said his confession was coerced by police. He has maintained that he is innocent.

Last year with hours left to live, Robert Roberson's life was spared following a furious effort by a bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers − a development rarely seen in the hardliner state A Texas judge has rescheduled the execution of a death row inmate who won a rare stay of execution last year as prison officials were poised to administer his lethal injection. Judge Austin Reeve Jackson on Wednesday set Robert Roberson's execution for Oct. 16, almost exactly a year after the Texas Supreme Court granted him a stay on his last execution day, Oct. 17, 2024.

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.

The Court said that the investigation was tainted and flawed, based on conjectures and surmises. The Supreme Court recently acquitted a man sentenced to the death penalty for the rape and murder of a three-year-old girl for lack of evidence [Ramkirat Munilal Goud v. State of Maharashtra]. The Bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sanjay Karol and Sandeep Mehta noted that the entire case was built on circumstantial evidence, requiring the prosecution to establish an unbroken chain of facts leading to only one conclusion: the guilt of the accused. However, the Court observed that the evidence presented was unreliable, inconsistent and marked by significant procedural lapses.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from a Texas death row inmate whose bid for a new trial drew the support of the prosecutor’s office that originally put him on death row. The justices left in place a Texas appeals court ruling that upheld the murder conviction and death sentence for Areli Escobar, even though Escobar’s case is similar to that of an Oklahoma man, Richard Glossip, whose murder conviction the high court recently overturned.

Wood’s attorneys have requested that more than 100 additional pieces of evidence be tested for DNA, but the state has opposed the request for over a decade.  Young women had been disappearing from the streets of El Paso for months before the first bodies were discovered in the desert northeast of the city. On September 4, 1987, police found the remains of Karen Baker and Rosa Maria Casio in shallow graves. The search for other missing women stretched into March of 1988, interrupted by nearly 2 feet of snowfall in December 1987, a weather anomaly still remembered whenever snow falls in West Texas. Four more victims of the so-called “Desert Killer” were discovered: Ivy Williams, Desiree Wheatley, Angelica Frausto, and Dawn Smith. The victims’ ages ranged from 14 to 24.

Wood's conviction of the murders of six women and girls in 1987 was largely based on circumstantial evidence. He and his attorney are fighting to stop his execution set for March 13 in Texas. LIVINGSTON, Texas - David Leonard Wood is angry. He’s angry that he’s been on Texas Death Row for nearly four decades when no DNA evidence links him to the murders of six women and girls in El Paso. He’s angry at every cop and prosecutor who put him behind bars, and he’s angry that his community largely believes he is the so-called Desert Killer. But right now, he’s mostly angry about his execution, scheduled for next week.