Death Penalty News

The number of death sentences handed out by juries has plunged by more than 90% since the 1990s. On July 8, the Death Penalty Information Center, or DPIC, released its midyear update on capital punishment in the United States. Many of the findings were sadly, disturbingly familiar. For example, racial bias still plays a large role in who gets executed, and the Supreme Court continues to allow executions to proceed even when those being put to death have strong claims of innocence. But there was also encouraging news.

The group said 25 Alabama death row prisoners remained under sentences imposed through a practice the state abolished in 2017. We The Jury —a new coalition of jurors, judges, attorneys, elected officials, community advocates and activists—is urging Governor Kay Ivey to grant clemency to death row inmates who were sentenced by judicial override, a now-illegal sentencing scheme that allowed judges to override a jury’s life sentence recommendation in favor of the death penalty.

The Israeli Knesset’s National Security Committee has approved a bill that stipulates capital punishment for those convicted of fatal "terrorist acts." Key provisions include execution by hanging within 90 days and the removal of the requirement for a unanimous judicial vote. The bill faces its final parliamentary votes next week. JERUSALEM — An Israeli parliamentary committee on Tuesday cleared a controversial bill that would establish the death penalty for individuals convicted of fatal acts of terrorism, moving the legislation toward a final vote in the Knesset. The National Security Committee approved the draft following a series of heated deliberations. The bill, sponsored by MK Limor Son Har-Melech of the Otzma Yehudit party, is scheduled for its second and third readings next week. If passed, it would mark the first time Israel has established a specific framework for capital punishment for terror-related homicides. Under the proposed law, the penalty would apply to an...

A man's fate hangs in the balance after decades on death row. The complexities of capital punishment in Florida are revealed. James D. Ford spent nearly every moment of the last 25 years in a six-foot by nine-foot cell on Florida’s Death Row. From the moment a judge in Charlotte County in southwest Florida handed down his death sentence in 1999, Ford’s only option was to wait. He waited as his lawyers unsuccessfully submitted appeal after appeal to Florida’s higher courts. He waited for rulings on motions meant to turn his death sentences into lifetime confinement. After his appeals lapsed and his sentence stood, he waited for his death warrant.

Six years ago, Louisianans were weighing the merits of requiring juries to arrive at unanimous verdicts, then the law in every other state save for Oregon. The most vocal opposition to the idea came from district attorneys, some of whom warned that a slew of hung-jury verdicts would result if Louisiana stopped allowing convictions on 10-2 or 11-1 votes.

Missouri has executed four people in 2023 so far. Amber McLaughlin, Michael Tisius, Johnny Johnson and Leonard Taylor, who maintained that he was innocent, all died by lethal injection. The state is one of five in the country that has carried out executions this year. Attorneys for a man awaiting sentencing have filed a motion to declare part of Missouri’s law on the death penalty unconstitutional. In June, Ian McCarthy, 45, was found guilty of first-degree murder in the 2017 shooting of Clinton police officer Gary Lee Michael, Jr. The jury could not reach a sentencing decision, leaving McCarthy’s fate up to Jackson County Judge Marco Roldan.

At the urging of Governor Ron DeSantis, bills have been introduced in the Florida House and Senate that would allow death sentences even when the jury cannot come to a unanimous verdict on the proper penalty. The proposed legislation would also permit a presiding judge to override a jury’s recommendation of life and impose a death sentence. Death sentences would be allowed if at least eight jurors agreed, creating the lowest threshold in the nation for the imposition of a death sentence. Only Alabama currently allows death sentences when the jury is not unanimous, and it requires at least 10 jurors to agree on death.

Penalty phase begins Monday for Mark Wilson Jr. in murders of 12-year-old Robert Baker, 14-year-old Tayten Baker PUTNAM COUNTY, Fla. – A man convicted of killing two young Putnam County brothers in 2020 will learn soon whether he will be sentenced to death for their murders. Mark Wilson Jr. was found guilty earlier this month on two counts of first-degree murder for killing 12-year-old Robert Baker and 14-year-old Tayten Baker. He was dating their aunt when the boys were stabbed and bludgeoned in their home in Melrose. The penalty phase for Wilson begins Monday with opening statements at 9 a.m. in Putnam County Court, where the jury that convicted Wilson will decide whether or not to recommend the death penalty. “This becomes infinitely more complicated when you factor in the possibility of Death Row,” said attorney Gene Nichols, who is not affiliated with the case. ″They know that the decision that they make is going to take a life or not.” The same jurors found Wilson guilty on all c...

The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld a stay of execution for an inmate who said the Alabama Department of Corrections did not give him a proper way to choose another execution method. In a 29-page ruling, the judges — U.S. Circuit Judges Adalberto Jordan; Charles Wilson, and Elizabeth Branch — said they found no reason to overturn U.S. District Judge Austin Huffaker's finding that the DOC failed to accommodate Matthew Reeves' intellectual disabilities when giving inmates the chance to die by nitrogen hypoxia. Huffaker ruled that violated the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). "Notably, this is not a case where a defendant has asked a district court to enjoin a state from executing him altogether, regardless of the method of execution," the three-judge panel wrote. "Mr. Reeves requested only that the court prevent the ADOC from executing him by any method other than the one he would have chosen but for the defendants’ alleged violation of...

TAMPA — Adam William Davis, who in 1998 murdered his teen girlfriend’s mother, will no longer face execution but will spend the rest of his life in prison. More than two decades after the slaying of Vicki Robinson, Hillsborough prosecutors said Thursday they will no longer try to keep Davis on death row. They cited his youth, his mental health, the sentencing disparity between Davis and his fellow defendants, and the fact that his jury voted by a bare majority for a death sentence. The non-unanimous jury vote was what opened the door to a new penalty hearing for Davis. He was one of dozens of death row prisoners whose sentences were overturned after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016 struck down Florida’s death penalty law as unconstitutional. Florida previously was one of the only U.S. states to allow juries to be less than unanimous in recommending the death penalty. For years, seven votes for death on a 12-person jury was all it took. But after the high court weighed in, state legislato...

The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that the execution of Willie B. Smith III can go forward February 11 with COVID precautions.  The court denied a motion by Smith to delay the execution because of COVID concerns. The federal district court in Alabama has also denied Smith’s challenge to Alabama’s refusal to allow his spiritual advisor in the execution chamber during his execution.  The court held that the protocol does not significantly infringe on Smith’s right to religion, as he is allowed religious counsel until he is in the execution room.  The court also held that the protocol restrictions are justified given the state interest in ensuring a safe execution.  Smith has appealed that ruling. RELATED | Alabama prepares to execute another Black man, under laws going back to slavery Smith, who was sentenced to death by the trial judge after a non-unanimous jury sentencing vote, has presented evidence that he is ineligible for the death penalty because of intellectu...

When Alabama’s Gov. Kay Ivey signed the state’s controversial Alabama Human Life Protection Act, a law that all but bans abortions in the state, she said “to the bill’s many supporters, this legislation stands as a powerful testament to Alabamians’ deeply held belief that every life is precious and that every life is a sacred gift from God.” Tell that to Willie B. Smith III. The state plans to execute the 51-year-old Smith on Thursday. So much for all that “every life” is precious talk. Smith was sentenced to death in 1992 for the 1991 abduction, robbery and murder of Sharma Ruth Johnson. The victim, the sister of a police detective, was reportedly shot execution style at a cemetery. Her body was found in the trunk of her burned car. Smith and two other men are said to have stolen $100 from Johnson, a white woman, before shooting her in the back of the head with a shotgun. It was a horrible crime — but the state’s idea of justice seems to be in conflict not only with the words of its g...

In 2 long-awaited decisions that will alter the landscape of Florida’s death row, the Florida Supreme Court has limited the reach of a landmark ruling that overturned the state’s constitutional prohibition against death sentences imposed after a non-unanimous jury vote for death. The court’s January 2020 decision in State v. Poole had raised the specter that the court might rescind orders that had overturned the death sentences of more than 100 Florida death-row prisoners and granted them new sentencing trials. However, on November 25, the court decided the cases of 2 defendants sentenced to death by non-unanimous juries who had been awaiting resentencing under the court’s 2016 decision, Hurst v. State . In those cases, the court unanimously rebuffed state prosecutors’ efforts to reinstate the death sentences of Bessman Okafor and Michael James Jackson without affording them the capital resentencing hearings previously ordered by the court. In January 2020, after state trial and appel...

The Florida Supreme Court has ruled it cannot reinstate death sentences for 2 convicted killers who previously had those sentences vacated by the justices. The Florida Supreme Court ruled Wednesday it cannot reinstate death sentences for 2 convicted killers who previously had those sentences vacated by the justices in a ruling that could ultimately affect dozens of cases. Instead, the justices determined that new sentencing hearings must be held for this pair of inmates. They are among more than 100 murderers who had death sentences vacated over the issue of whether juries had to unanimously recommend capital punishment. “We realize that resentencing in a capital case is time-consuming and costly, all at the public’s expense. These considerations, however compelling, do not give us license to exceed the legal constraints on our authority,” the court ruled in one of the cases. The decisions are the latest twist in the Florida Supreme Court's effort to decide whether juries must unan...