Death Penalty News

Though many said they supported capital punishment, an almost equal number of people conceded they don't think it deters crime. (CN) — An eye for an eye, say the two-thirds of Americans who support punishing murderers with death, according to research published by Pew on Thursday. A little less than a third of Americans, 32%, oppose capital punishment entirely, standing in line with Gandhi's spin on the age-old aphorism, “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” “As the Trump administration and some states seek to expand the application of the death penalty, about two-thirds of Americans (66%) now favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder, while nearly a third (32%) oppose it,” researchers wrote in the report.

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...

The death row population in the U.S. has dropped below 2,000 for the first time since the 1980s, according to the latest report on national capital punishment trends released by the civil rights think tank Thurgood Marshall Institute (TMI) of the Legal Defense Fund (LDF). The Spring 2026 edition of Death Row U.S.A., which tracks state and national data on death row populations, executions, the race and sex of victims in execution cases, and the impact of moratoria and judicial reversals, shows that the nation’s death row population now stands at 1,993, down 47% from its peak of 3,726 in January 2001. The current death-row population is the smallest recorded in LDF’s more than 50 years of monitoring since December 1987, when 1,982 incarcerated people faced execution.

Jury selection is set to begin Monday in the federal death penalty trial of Payton Gendron, who is already serving a life sentence after pleading guilty in state court to carrying out the racially motivated mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket in 2022 that killed 10 Black people and injured three others. The upcoming proceedings relate to separate federal charges, where prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, and jurors could ultimately decide whether Gendron is executed or remains in prison for life. Here are three key takeaways as the next phase of proceedings gets underway:

The U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for a new trial for one of Alabama’s longest-serving people on death row after declining to review a lower court ruling that prosecutors violated his constitutional rights by intentionally rejecting Black jurors.  According to an article written by the Associated Press, one of the longest-serving death row inmates in Alabama might receive a new trial after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the state’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling that prosecutors had violated his rights by intentionally rejecting Black jurors.  According to the article, on Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the ruling from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. This decision paved the way for Michael Sockwell, the 63-year-old death row inmate, to receive a new trial.

Over the past two weeks, two Florida death row pris­on­ers filed fresh chal­lenges to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ deci­sions to sign his tenth and eleventh death war­rants of 2025. On July 29, 2025, Kayle Barrington Bates (also known as Maud Dib Al Sharif) brought a civ­il suit against Gov. DeSantis alleg­ing Florida’s exe­cu­tion war­rant process ​“is infect­ed with racial dis­crim­i­na­tion and uncon­sti­tu­tion­al arbi­trari­ness.” Included in the claim is a sta­tis­ti­cal analy­sis show­ing that ​“95% of the exe­cu­tions that Governor DeSantis has autho­rized involved white victims.”

On February 13, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine postponed the three Ohio executions that were scheduled for 2025. And he predicted that no one would be put to death during the remainder of his time in office which ends in 2026. Columbus’s NBC4 reports that “the reprieves were issued due to ‘ongoing problems involving the willingness of pharmaceutical suppliers to provide drugs to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC), pursuant to DRC protocol, without endangering other Ohioans.’”

Death Sentences and Executions Remain Near Historic Lows Amid Growing Concerns about Fairness and Innocence.  President Biden and North Carolina Governor Consider Commutations of Death Rows to Remedy Systemic Problems. USA | The Death Penalty in 2024: Summary Four States Responsible for 76% of Executions   (Washington, D.C.) This year marked the tenth consecutive year where fewer than 30 people were executed (25) and fewer than 50 people were sentenced to death (26). High-profile cases of death-sentenced individuals garnered significant attention and new, unexpected supporters.  

In the early 1970s I was a North Carolinian, white boy from the South attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and working in East Harlem as part of a program. In my senior year, I visited men at the Bronx House of Detention. I had never been in a prison or jail, but people in East Harlem were dealing with these places and the police all the time. This experience truly turned my life around.

Simpson died after a battle with cancer, his family said. O.J. Simpson, the former football great who was accused of and ultimately acquitted of the brutal 1994 slayings of his ex-wife and her friend, has died, according to his family. He was 76. "On April 10th, our father, Orenthal James Simpson, succumbed to his battle with cancer. He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren. During this time of transition, his family asks that you please respect their wishes for privacy and grace," a statement from his family said.

Across the country, few people have been on death row longer than Karu Gene White. White was 20 years old when he was convicted of taking part in the brutal murders of three elderly Breathitt County shopkeepers in February 1979. The following year, he was sentenced to death by execution. Today, nearly 44 years later, White is still languishing on death row at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Lyon County — awaiting an execution that may never come. And he’s not the only one.

As Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards (pictured) considers the clemency petitions filed by 51 of the state’s 57 death row prisoners, advocates and journalists have noted the similarities between Louisiana’s death penalty system and that of Illinois, where Governor George Ryan commuted the sentences of all 167 people on death row in 2003. Both states have had high numbers of death row exonerations stemming from systemic misconduct, death sentences in both states are concentrated in a small number of jurisdictions, and both governors have expressed serious personal concerns about the use of capital punishment.

The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), with the support of the Foreign Office of the Federal Government of Germany, recently undertook a project examining the U.S. death penalty through a human rights lens.  DPIC has added a series of human rights pages to its website, reframing three aspects of the death penalty – race, conditions of confinement, and executions – in light of human rights norms and treaties. The page on U.S. executions highlights various human rights issues related to methods of execution, including lethal injection, and the international community’s response.  The conditions of confinement page discusses ongoing practices that vary from the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners , more commonly known as the “Nelson Mandela rules.” 

The Supreme Court declined on Tuesday to take up the case of a Black man on death row for killing his estranged wife, who was White, and 2 children, including their interracial child. The vote was 6-3, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor and liberal colleagues Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting from the court’s order. Andre Lee Thomas was convicted to death by an all-White jury, including 3 jurors who expressed opposition to interracial marriage on their jury questionnaires. Thomas’ counsel at the time raised no objection about the 3 jurors. Thomas, suffering from severe schizophrenia, murdered his wife, Laura Christine Boren, and the children before attempting to take his own life in 2004. Days later, in his jail cell, Thomas gouged out his right eye. “Thomas’ case undermines principles this Court has repeatedly and forcefully protected: the right to an impartial jury, and the recognition that overt racial bias in the criminal justice system must be eradicated,” Sherrilyn Ifill...

Ramirez was sentenced to death for murdering Corpus Christi convenience store clerk Pablo Castro. After a previous execution was halted, Ramirez won a Supreme Court case over death row inmates’ religious rights. John Ramirez, 38, convicted of murdering a Corpus Christi convenience store clerk in 2004, is scheduled to be executed Wednesday, despite the objection of the Nueces County district attorney. And even though Ramirez’s execution has been delayed three previous times, his attorney said he has no further legal opportunities to stop the state’s latest attempt to put him to death. Ramirez’s pastor will be alongside him in the death chamber, fulfilling a request he made during his latest scheduled execution one year ago. Texas initially denied his request to have a pastor touch and pray over him as he was executed, spurring a religious liberties case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court found Texas had violated Ramirez’s religious liberties by denying his pastor’s presence...

California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed into law a bill that provides death-row prisoners relief from convictions or death sentences obtained “on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin.”

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The Supreme Court begins its new term Oct. 3, jumping right back into the fray with cases that take on affirmative action, voting, immigration, the environment and freedom of speech. Ketanji Brown Jackson This term will include a new member, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, replacing Justice Stephen Breyer, who retired at the end of last session. It also will be the first time the public will be allowed back inside the court since the start of the pandemic. The building will will remain closed to the public — except for oral arguments — until further notice. In a Sept. 28 news release, the court announced that it will continue to provide live audio of oral arguments this term. Another change is outside. Barriers around the court since May — after protests erupted following a leak of the court’s draft opinion on its Dobbs decision — have now been removed. The investigation into that leak, ordered by Chief Justice John Roberts, is still continuing. For now, the court has...

Johnson set to die by injection on Nov. 29 for 2005 murder of Kirkwood police sergeant An execution date has been set for Kevin Johnson, convicted of shooting and killing Kirkwood Police Sgt. William (Bill) McEntee on July 5, 2005. Johnson, 36, is set to die by injection on Nov. 29, 2022, at the state prison in Bonne Terre, Missouri, the Missouri Supreme Court announced last week. Johnson appealed his conviction over the years, arguing that he didn’t get a fair trial. The Missouri Supreme Court in July 2013 upheld the November 2007 conviction of Johnson in McEntee’s murder. Johnson, who had been sentenced to death for the shooting, was seeking a new trial. Advocates for Johnson seeking to win him clemency say he received the death penalty because of a racially biased prosecution that was set on convicting a Black man for killing a white cop. Former St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch, who prosecuted the case, said that race was not a factor. He said Johnson was convicted of mu...

Oklahoma last week began what many are viewing as a state-sanctioned onslaught on its incarcerated population — executing its first death row inmate out of an unprecedented 25 inmates scheduled to be put to death in a total of 29 months. The latest execution, of James Coddington, a white man who had been in jail since 1997 for killing a friend who refused to loan him $50 to buy cocaine, marked a dramatic step for state leadership. Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt denied Coddington clemency after the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board recommended leniency in early August. Many residents are now wondering whether the board’s recommendations matter in the state with the highest execution rate in the country. “I have little hope that the Pardon and Parole Board will grant any more clemencies,” Rev. Don Heath, chair of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, told Yahoo News on Friday. “The best hope for change is that a new governor will be elected in November, but that is a long shot...