The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/capital-punishment/)
A Colorado prosecutor backed off seeking a death sentence against the man accused of killing Adams County Deputy Heath Gumm in 2018. District Attorney Dave Young criticized Gov. Jared Polis for signing a bill to repeal the death penalty in the state.
Gov. Jared Polis’ signature made Colorado the 22nd state to end the death penalty. Polis commuted the sentences of the three men on death row.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a 60-day stay of a murderer’s execution. Prosecutors objected, saying there was no evidence that COVID-19 affected the state’s ability to act.
The state is abolishing the death penalty, but a judge says an ongoing capital punishment case should continue although most of the courthouse is closed.
A judge said death row inmate Rigoberto Avila Jr. should get a new trial because new scientific evidence could have led a jury to acquit him. Almost a year and a half later, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected the judge’s decision and upheld Avila’s conviction.
One analysis found the average meal requested by a person about to be executed came in at 2,756 calories, but four requests, from Texas and Oklahoma, were estimated to have gone beyond 7,000.
Nathaniel Woods, 43, was put to death Thursday, 14 years after his conviction for his role as an accomplice to the murder of three Alabama police officers. Woods’ family and supporters such as Martin Luther King III, said he was not responsible for the deaths.
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday, 5 to 4, against an Arizona man convicted of murder who argued that he might have avoided death row if allowed to tell jurors about the difficult circumstances of his childhood.
Her colleagues on the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Rodney Reed, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, citing “the pall of uncertainty over Reed’s conviction.”
Attorney General Mike Hunter would not say where the needed drugs for lethal injections have been found. The state has another execution method called nitrogen hypoxia if drugs can’t be located.