Death Penalty News

Despite an 11th-hour confession from another man, James Broadnax is slated to be executed by the state of Texas later this week.  Broadnax, 37, is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection April 30 in Huntsville. He was condemned by a Dallas County jury in 2009 for the deaths of Stephen Swan, 26, and Matthew Butler, 28, outside their Garland music studio. Broadnax and his cousin, Demarius Cummings, had set out to rob the men, but left with only $2 and a 1995 Ford, according to previous reporting from The Dallas Morning News. 

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The fate of the man who shot and killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket in May 2022 will be determined in the city where the tragedy occurred. U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo on Tuesday denied a motion to move the federal death penalty trial for Payton Gendron to Rochester.  Attorneys for Gendron had sought the change of venue, arguing the court would be unable to seat a fair and impartial jury due to "pervasive news coverage" in the Buffalo area.

In the high-stakes theater of the American legal system, the trial is often sold as a quest for truth. We imagine a defendant standing before a jury of their peers, a fair fight where the burden of proof rests entirely with the state. But for those facing the ultimate punishment, the reality is far darker. The death penalty transforms the legal process into a high-pressure extraction, where the right to a jury trial is often a trap that leads straight to a coercive plea bargain.

A murderer-for-hire who has been on death row for the past 33 years must be retried or released, a judge ruled, after it was found that some jurors were illegally excused based on their race or ethnic identity during the trial Because of prosecutorial misconduct in the selection of the jury in the trial of a convicted death row murderer-for-hire, a judge ruled that the man must now be freed or, at the very least, retried. The Alameda County prosecutor's office now has just 60 days to retry 71-year-old Curtis Lee Ervin or set him free, a California judge ruled at the request of California Attorney General Rob Bonta. Ervin was found guilty of a murder-for-hire in 1986 and has been on California's death row ever since.

Death penalty cases  are almost always legally complex , but many are also morally simple and straightforward. Occasionally such moral clarity breaks through the morass of legal maneuvering associated with those cases. Kenneth Smith, whom Alabama plans to execute using lethal injection on November 17, is one such case. He faces death even though  a jury that heard his case voted 11-1 to recommend that he be sentenced to life in prison without parole.  That alone should raise suspicion that something is amiss in the Smith case, but there is more. He faces execution because, at the time he was sentenced, Alabama was one of three death penalty states (the other two were Delaware and Florida) that  allowed  judges to override jury decisions in death cases. Judicial override  meant that elected judges could make their own determination  whether the aggravating circumstances in a death case outweighed the mitigating circumstances. Judges could impose a death...

Attorneys for Texas’ oldest death row prisoner have filed a petition to stop his April 21 execution, arguing that it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment and violates his right to due process. Carl Wayne Buntion, 78, was convicted of murdering a Houston police officer more than three decades ago. He often uses a wheelchair, according to the filing, and experiences vertigo “so severe that he cannot be housed in a cell which is not on the ground floor.” He has been diagnosed with Hepatitis C and cirrhosis, a chronic liver disease, court records say. The petition names Bryan Collier, executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, and Bobby Lumpkin, director of the agency’s Correctional Institutions Division, as defendants. In a statement, the agency said it does not comment on pending litigation. During a traffic stop in 1990 for a minor violation, Buntion got out of the car and shot Houston police office James Irby in the forehead and then twice in the back. Irby died...

BOSTON (AP) — Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is again trying to avoid execution, asking the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to consider four constitutional claims not taken up when his death sentence appeal went to the Supreme Court last month. Tsarnaev’s attorneys in a filing Thursday said the trial court “improperly forced” their client to stand trial in Boston; violated his constitutional rights by denying his challenges to two jurors accused of lying during questioning; dismissed a potential juror because of that person’s opposition to the death penalty; and allowed the admission as evidence of what they called Tsarnaev’s “coerced confession.” Thursday’s filing was in response to a Wednesday filing by the appeals court to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision last month to reinstate Tsarnaev’s death penalty. “Because these four claims on direct appeal have not yet been adjudicated by any appellate court, Tsarnaev respectfully submits that the April 6 judgment was ent...

Don’t call the Parkland shooter a killer, his lawyers say. Don’t call him a murderer. Don’t call him “the thing,” as some have. And don’t call the murders at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School a “massacre,” a “shooting spree” or the “schoolhouse slaughter.” Nikolas Cruz, who shot and killed 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School three years ago, is still entitled to a fair trial, and his lawyers say he won’t get one if prosecutors and witnesses use the colorful language to describe him or the incident. “References to Mr. Cruz with the use of inflammatory labels will violate his constitutional right to due process and his right to a fair trial,” his lawyers wrote in a motion filed June 30. Since the earliest days of the case, the Broward Public Defender’s Office, which represents Cruz, has all but conceded he was the gunman who opened fire at the Parkland high school, killing 17, injuring 17 more and emotionally scarring the surviving students and faculty. Publi...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider reinstating the death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, presenting President Joe Biden with an early test of his opposition to capital punishment. The justices agreed to hear an appeal filed by the Trump administration, which carried out executions of 13 federal inmates in its final six months in office, including three in the last week of President Donald Trump’s term. The case won’t be heard until the fall, and it’s unclear how the new administration will approach Tsarnaev’s case. The initial prosecution and decision to seek a death sentence was made by the Obama administration, in which Biden served as vice president. Biden has pledged to seek an end to the federal death penalty, but he has said nothing about how he plans to do so. In just over two months in office, the new administration has reversed its predecessor’s position in several high court cases. But the Justice Department has not notifie...

Scott Peterson’s case is returning to Stanislaus Superior Court Friday for the first time since national publicity resulted in a transfer to San Mateo County before his murder trial began 16 years ago. What exactly will be discussed at the hearing is not yet clear; the California Supreme Court in two separate rulings recently overturned Peterson’s death sentence and ordered that allegations of prejudicial misconduct by a juror be heard by a Judge in San Mateo Superior Court. RELATED |  California high court rejects Scott Peterson's death penalty “If I had to speculate my guess is that the prosecution will ask the court to allow them additional time to make the decision on whether to retry the penalty phase based on what is going on in San Mateo,” said Pat Harris, who served as co-counsel to Mark Geragos during Peterson’s trial. He said he was awaiting additional documents to be sent to him from the court regarding the hearing. District Attorney Birgit Fladager would not say Tuesday...

Federal prosecutors have filed a petition in the U.S. Supreme Court asking the Court to review a federal appeals court ruling that overturned the death sentence imposed on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. On October 6, 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a petition for writ of certiorari challenging the July 31 ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit that Tsarnaev’s right to an impartial jury had been denied when the trial judge failed to question nine of the 12 impaneled jurors on the content of their exposure to the extensive pretrial publicity about the case.  Prosecutors also challenged the appeals court’s decision that the trial court improperly excluded mitigating evidence relating to his brother Tamerlan’s involvement in a prior triple murder that would have supported Dzhokar Tsarnaev’s argument that Tamerlan was more culpable and that Dzhokhar was acting under the dominating influence of his older brother. In August, Attorney...

Federal prosecutors have filed a brief asking the United States Supreme Court to review an appellate panel’s ruling to toss out the death sentence given to Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. In July, a 3-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new penalty-phase trial on whether the 27-year-old Tsarnaev should be executed for the attack that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others. US Attorney Andrew E. Lelling, whose office is based in Boston, wants the Supreme Court to hear issues surrounding the reversal of the death penalty. Lelling said he believes the Supreme Court will decide whether or not to hear the case by the end of 2020. Lelling added that he hopes Tsarnaev’s original death penalty will be reinstated so a penalty phase in trial court is not needed. RELATED |  Trump calls for execution of Boston Marathon bomber Tsarnaev after sentence overturned due to jury bias Tsarnaev was convicted on 30 charges, including conspiracy and us...

Scott Peterson's death penalty sentence may have been reversed , but the convicted murderer's family believes he could die in prison soon anyway due to COVID-19 and they're pushing for a transfer. Peterson's attorney, Cliff Gardner, tells TMZ Scott's family is majorly concerned for his health following the widespread and deadly coronavirus outbreak at San Quentin State Prison. Peterson's currently locked up at San Quentin, and in the last month, the prison reportedly saw cases surge with up to two-thirds of the prison getting infected.  It currently leads California's prison system in infections and deaths. With those grim numbers in mind, Gardner says his goal is to place Peterson in the safest possible prison permitted under California law to ensure his safety. However, according to California prison officials, there's no plans to move him, and he'll be staying put at San Quentin for now. As we reported, the California Su...