The Death Penalty Information Center has discovered rampant prosecutorial misconduct in death penalty prosecutions, finding more than 550 prosecutorial misconduct reversals and exonerations in capital cases in the past half-century.
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“The data show a wasteful punishment, incompetently applied and beset by arbitrary factors such as race, place, and time,” Death Penalty Information Center Director Robert Dunham said in a statement marking the 50th anniversary of Furman v. Georgia.
Polls consistently show that while a majority of Americans now oppose capital punishment in theory, many will support death sentences for individuals accused of heinous crimes, writes Matt Mangino, a former Pennsylvania DA who has written extensively on the death penalty.
Attorneys for 28 death row inmates argued that the use of the sedative midazolam violated the Eighth Amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment.
An agreement with prison officials vows “more humane conditions” after a long-running federal lawsuit challenged the way Florida death row inmates were being treated.
Arizona’s nearly eight-year hiatus in using the death penalty ended with the execution of Clarence Davis for killing a college student 44 years ago, making him the sixth person to be put to death in the U.S. so far this year.
While the judge found that the inmate, Clarence Dixon does suffer from schizophrenia, the judge said Dixon is rational and understands the proceedings in his case well enough to show he is competent to be executed.
A woman who decides to end her pregnancy is already at risk of capital punishment in many parts of the U.S. if she is prosecuted for murder, warns a death penalty opponent.
If Arizona death row inmate Frank Atwood chooses cyanide as his preferred method of death, he would become the first person this century to be executed using the “Holocaust gas.”
Despite his death sentence being overturned three times, Missouri death row inmate Carman Deck has been scheduled for execution, making him just the fifth U.S. inmate to be executed this year if his lethal injection goes ahead.