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.

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. 

Charles Flores argued that his conviction was improperly based on testimony from a witness who changed her recollection after hypnosis by an investigator. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected Texas death row inmate Charles Flores’ efforts to force the state’s highest criminal court to reconsider his appeal. The Supreme Court denied the petition without comment. Flores argued that his 1999 conviction should be overturned under the Texas “junk science” law because testimony from a key witness was improperly influenced by hypnosis performed by a police officer who was investigating the murder of 64-year-old Elizabeth “Betty” Black in Dallas County.

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.”

Among the cases that are headed back to court is that of Robert Roberson, who argues he was wrongfully convicted of killing his daughter based on now-debunked science. Several appeals in some of Texas’ highest-profile capital punishment cases are set for 2026 as the state continues to maintain a historically low number of executions.  2025 marked the second year Texas was not the leading state in executions in a single year, but the state is still the overall leader nationally in the death penalty. Harris County alone, which handed down its 300th death sentence last year, accounts for more executions than any other state. 

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.”

A Louisiana man who spent nearly 30 years on death row walked out of prison Wednesday after a judge overturned his conviction and granted him bail. Jimmie Duncan, now in his 60s, was sentenced to death in 1998 for the alleged rape and drowning of his girlfriend’s 23-month-old daughter, Haley Oliveaux — a case long clouded by disputed forensic testimony. His release comes months after a state judge ruled that the evidence prosecutors used to secure the conviction was unreliable and rooted in discredited bite-mark analysis.

New Jersey’s highest court ruled Thursday that expert testimony about shaken baby syndrome is scientifically unreliable and inadmissible in two upcoming trials, a decision that comes as the long-held medical diagnoses have come under increased scrutiny. The New Jersey Supreme Court determined that a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome, which is also known as abusive head trauma, is not generally accepted within the “biomechanical community” and is therefore not “sufficiently reliable” for admission at the trials.

A Texas court has halted the execution of a man convicted of killing his two-year-old daughter in a "shaken baby syndrome" case. Death row inmate Robert Roberson, who has always maintained the child died from complications linked to pneumonia, had been scheduled for execution on 16 October. The diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome (SBS) refers to a serious brain injury resulting from forcefully shaking an infant or a toddler.

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.

Death row inmate Blaine Milam is scheduled to be executed Thursday evening for the 2008 killing of his then-fiancée’s 13-month-old daughter after his two previous execution dates were delayed. In 2008, Milam and the girl’s mother, Jesseca Carson, called police to their home near Tatum, where authorities found 13-month-old Amora Carson dead, with human bite marks on her body and signs of physical and sexual assault, according to court documents. The two initially gave police different reasons for the toddler’s death, including that they had left the home and found her injured, that she had eaten insulation and later that they had performed an exorcism on the child.

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.

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.

After a roughly 20-minute hearing, Judge Austin Reeve Jackson rejected arguments by Roberson’s attorney that his execution should be further delayed because of a pending appeal to the state’s highest criminal court. A judge ordered an Oct. 16 execution date for death row inmate Robert Roberson Wednesday upon the Texas Attorney General’s request — almost exactly a year after he narrowly avoided execution when state lawmakers intervened in his case.

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.

On June 16, 2025, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a motion in the Anderson County District Court request­ing a new exe­cu­tion date for Robert Roberson, despite the fact that a motion from defense coun­sel with new evi­dence in sup­port of Mr. Roberson’s actu­al inno­cence remains pend­ing. As the Dallas Morning Editorial Board notes, it is ​“unusu­al” that “[AG] Paxton’s office is involved” in request­ing the exe­cu­tion date. AG Paxton has active­ly sought Mr. Roberson’s exe­cu­tion and has pub­licly dis­put­ed his claims of inno­cence ; his office recent­ly took over Mr. Roberson’s case from the district attorney.

Roberson was convicted of killing his daughter based on a theory of “shaken baby syndrome.”  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton won’t abandon his ugly campaign to deny justice to Robert Roberson, even as Roberson’s lawyers keep discrediting his conviction in the death of his 2-year-old daughter.  This week, Paxton’s office requested a new execution date for Roberson despite the fact that a new appeal on Roberson’s behalf is pending before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.  Perhaps even more unusual is the fact that Paxton’s office is involved at all. The attorney general’s office has taken over the prosecution, reportedly at the request of Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell, who has litigated the case for years. 

State asks for Robert Roberson to be executed on Oct. 16, 2025; Roberson's lawyers file motion to object Lawyers representing a Texas death row inmate who avoided capital punishment last year are objecting to the state's request for a new execution date. On Monday, the office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton requested that the Anderson County District Court schedule 58-year-old Robert Roberson's execution for Oct. 16. In its five-page motion, Paxton's office said that because the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s top criminal court, has previously denied appeals in Roberson’s case, “the criteria for setting an execution have been met.”

A Texas man sentenced to death row with the help of “hypnotized” witness testimony is asking a Dallas County judge not to set his execution date as his attorneys try to prove he was wrongfully convicted with junk science. The move from Charles Don Flores’ attorneys comes in response to the Texas Attorney General’s Office request that a Dallas judge set an execution date for Flores in a letter Monday. Tomee Heining, chief of the AG’s Criminal Appeals Division, offered several dates in November as available for Flores’ execution.