Death Penalty News

On May 1, Jeffrey Hutchinson, a Gulf War vet­er­an, was exe­cut­ed in Florida for the mur­ders of his girl­friend and her three young chil­dren. As he fought behind ene­my lines in some of the most dan­ger­ous regions on earth, bombs rat­tled and nerve gas cor­rod­ed his brain, caus­ing per­ma­nent dam­age that would con­tribute to the tragedy just a few years lat­er. ​“His mind was a casu­al­ty, just like any limb lost in com­bat,” a group of 129 mil­i­tary vet­er­ans wrote in a let­ter urg­ing Gov. Ron DeSantis to halt the exe­cu­tion. But no fed­er­al court ever con­sid­ered whether Mr. Hutchinson’s life should be spared because of the phys­i­cal and men­tal trau­ma he suf­fered in the mil­i­tary. His fed­er­al appeals were dis­missed not because they did not have mer­it, but because his attor­neys mis­cal­cu­lat­ed a filing deadline.

In an opinion legal experts have blasted as “nightmarish” and “an abomination,” the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in two Arizona death penalty cases that 1990s amendments to the federal habeas corpus law permit state prisoners who were provided ineffective representation at trial and in post-conviction proceedings to argue that their counsel were ineffective but bar them from presenting evidence of their ineffectiveness that competent lawyers had discovered once the case had reached federal court. Barry Jones’ state court lawyers had failed to investigate available evidence that he was innocent and David Martinez Ramirez’s state court lawyers had failed to investigate evidence of intellectual disability that could have led a jury to spare his life. Having failed to investigate, neither set of lawyers presented the evidence to state courts. In a May 23, 2022 ruling in Shinn v. Martinez Ramirez , Justice Clarence Thomas declared for the six conservative members of the Court that neither m...

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Officials said Monday that they can’t carry out South Carolina’s first death penalty in more than six years because the state can’t get the drugs needed for lethal injection, but remaining appeals make it unlikely the execution could have moved forward as scheduled anyway. The Department of Corrections last week received its first execution order in more than six years . State Supreme Court justices set a Dec. 1 execution date for Bobby Wayne Stone, a 52-year-old man on death row for killing a Sumter County sheriff’s deputy. Sgt. Charlie Kubala was killed when he was shot twice while checking on a suspicious person at a Sumter home in February 1996. Stone didn’t deny shooting the officer but said his gun went off accidentally when both were in the same area. The state’s current injection protocol requires three drugs: pentobarbital, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride. The state’s supply of pentobarbital expired in 2013, and Corrections Direc...

California death row A contentious Justice Department policy that could speed up death-row executions is closer to taking effect, following a recent federal appeals court ruling. The opinion from the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals could clear the way for states to apply for a program to fast-track death-row appeals, potentially leading to swifter executions. Death-penalty supporters have been calling for speedier appeals for years, though defense lawyers and death-penalty opponents say fairness is lost if complicated appeals aren’t given the time they need. The controversy over the policy comes as the use of the death penalty continues a yearslong decline. In 2015, 28 people were executed, the lowest number since 1991, according to a study by the Death Penalty Information Center. Roughly 3,000 inmates sat on death row at the beginning of the year, and 31 states currently allow executions. In its Wednesday decision, the Ninth Circuit tossed a 2013 lawsuit brought b...

In 1992, Kenneth Rouse, an African-American man with an IQ between 70 and 80 - "borderline intellectual functioning," in the clinical parlance - prepared to stand trial in North Carolina on charges that he had robbed, murdered and attempted to rape a white, 63-year-old store clerk. Rouse's lawyers questioned the prospective jurors to try to expose any racial or other bias. But several years after the all-white jury convicted Rouse and recommended a death sentence, his defense team made a stunning discovery. 1 of the jurors, Joseph Baynard, who used a racial slur when referring to African-Americans, admitted that his mother had been robbed, murdered and possibly raped years before. Baynard had not disclosed this history, he said, so that he could sit in judgment of Rouse, whom he called "1 step above a moron." As claims of juror bias go, the evidence could hardly have been stronger. But Rouse's final appeal was never heard. Under the Antiterror...

In 1992, Kenneth Rouse, an African American man with an IQ between 70 and 80 - "borderline intellectual functioning," in the clinical parlance - prepared to stand trial in North Carolina on charges that he had robbed, murdered and attempted to rape a white, 63-year-old store clerk. Rouse's lawyers questioned the prospective jurors to try to expose any racial or other bias they might have against the defendant. But several years after the all-white jury convicted Rouse and recommended a death sentence, his defense team made a stunning discovery. One of the jurors, Joseph S. Baynard, admitted that his mother had been robbed, murdered and possibly raped years before. Baynard had not disclosed this history, he said, so that he could sit in judgment of Rouse, whom he called "1 step above a moron." Baynard, who used a racial slur when referring to African Americans, added that he thought black men raped white women for bragging rights. As claims of juro...