Skip navigation

Search

207 results
Article • October 1, 2025 • from PLN October, 2025
Filed under: Death Penalty, Death Row
In the Killing Chamber by Doran Larson by Doran Larson The Texas state death house in Huntsville is a squat brick building fronted by a few square yards of struggling grass and knee-­high shrubs. Gleaming chain link fencing surrounds a concrete ramp that rises to the door to accommodate shackled …
Article • August 1, 2025 • from PLN August, 2025
Oklahoma Prisoner’s Execution Was Expedited by the Trump Administration by John Hanson, 61, received a three-drug lethal injection on the morning of June 12, 2025, and was pronounced dead by 10:11 a.m., reported USA TODAY. Hanson—who received a life sentence for carjacking, kidnapping, and killing Mary Bowles in Tulsa in …
Article • August 1, 2025 • from PLN August, 2025
On Remand, Eleventh Circuit Clarifies, Affirms Grant of Habeas Relief to Death Row Prisoner by Joseph Clifton Smith beat Durk Van Dam to death during a robbery, and was sentenced to death following his conviction in 1997. He has been appealing his case for almost three decades, most recently resulting …
Article • June 1, 2025 • from PLN June, 2025
Filed under: Death Row
Idaho Spent $200,000 on Execution Drugs Now Expired by Since 2023, the Idaho Department of Correction has spent $200,000 in purchasing lethal injection chemicals. Because of prisoner appeals and other delays, however, those drugs have now expired, amounting to a complete waste of taxpayer money. Although Idaho passed a bill …
Article • June 1, 2025 • from PLN June, 2025
Death Row Prisoners Challenge New Tennessee Single-Drug Lethal Injection Protocol by Nine condemned Tennessee prisoners filed suit in state court on March 14, 2025, accusing the state Department of Corrections (DOC) of subjecting them to a “risk of torturous death” with a lethal execution protocol utilizing pentobarbital. Kevin Burns, Byron …
Article • June 1, 2025 • from PLN June, 2025
Federal Court Blocks Idaho Executions Until Media Access Improves by On April 29, 2025, the federal court for the District of Idaho issued a preliminary injunction blocking the state Department of Corrections (DOC) from carrying out any executions until it improves access for members of the media. The ruling came …
Article • February 15, 2025 • from PLN February, 2025
Arizona To Resume Executions by On November 26, 2024, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) dismissed David Duncan, the head of the state Independent Death Penalty Review committee that she appointed in January 2023 to review execution procedures after a series of state killings that Hobbs called “botched.” But when executions …
Article • September 15, 2024 • from PLN September, 2024
Competency Evaluation Ordered for Condemned Utah Prisoner by David Reutter On February 13, 2024, the Third Judicial Circuit Court in and for Salt Lake County, Utah, ordered an examination to determine if death row prisoner Ralph Leroy Menzies, 65, is competent to be executed. Menzies’ attorneys argued that he suffers …
Two Prisoners Removed from Texas Death Row Due to Intellectual Disability by David Reutter by David M. Reutter   The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals resentenced death row prisoner Tomas Raul Gallo, 49, to life imprisonment on April 5, 2024, approving an agreement by prosecutors that Gallo’s intellectual disability (ID) …
Article • June 1, 2024 • from PLN June, 2024
Executions Rise in 2023, Number on Death Row Falls by The number of American prisoners awaiting execution continued a decrease that began at the turn of the century, dropping to 2,331 in 2023, a 4.3% decline from 2022. Yet even though just five states executed prisoners during the year— Texas, …
Article • June 1, 2024 • from PLN June, 2024
Atheist Chaplain Attends Atheist Oklahoma Prisoner During Execution by In the final hours before Oklahoma killed Phillip Hancock on November 30, 2023, he was attended by a chaplain, like almost all condemned prisoners. Unlike most though, Hancock was an atheist. So was his chaplain, Devin Moss. As the last minutes …
Condemned Texas Prisoner Ruled Too Mentally Ill to Execute by Matthew Clarke by Matt Clarke. Condemned Texas prisoner Scott Louis Panetti, 65, was taken off the state’s death row on September 27, 2023, when the federal court for the Western District of Texas found him too insane to kill—or as …
Article • March 1, 2024 • from PLN March, 2024
Alabama Conducts First Nitrogen Hypoxia Execution by Alabama killed condemned prisoner Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, on January 25, 2024, the first execution conducted using nitrogen hypoxia, a controversial method that suffocates victims with nitrogen gas and robs them of oxygen. The risks of the procedure are so unknown that the …
Article • April 1, 2020 • from PLN April, 2020
Precedential Settlement Eliminates Solitary Confinement on Pennsylvania’s Death Row by David Reutter by David M. Reutter The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PDOC) has agreed to operate a Capital Case Unit (CCU) “as a general population unit that exclusively houses prisoners sentenced to death.” That change in conditions is part of …
Solitary Confinement for Former Death Row Prisoner Held Unconstitutional by David M. Reutter by David M. Reutter A Connecticut federal district court held on August 27, 2019 that a former death row prisoner who was kept in solitary confinement had been subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. The court issued …
Article • December 11, 2019 • from PLN December, 2019
Project Hope Fights to End the Death Penalty ... from Death Row by Bill Barton by Bill Barton The executive director of Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty, Esther Brown, is a former psychiatric social worker who has been called “the most loyal person I’ve ever met” by a …
Article • December 10, 2019 • from PLN December, 2019
Fourth Circuit Agrees Virginia’s Death Row Conditions Violated Eighth Amendment by Scott Grammer by Scott Grammer Almost 120 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized the harm that solitary confinement causes. Prior to 2015, prisoners on Virginia’s death row were housed in solitary in 71-square-foot cells (about the size of …
Article • November 4, 2019 • from PLN November, 2019
Virginia Death Row Conditions Subjected Prisoners to Risk of Harm by David M. Reutter by David M. Reutter On May 3, 2019, the Fourth Cir­cuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court’s order that found the conditions of confinement on Virginia’s death row violated the Eighth Amendment. The appellate court …
Article • July 2, 2019 • from PLN July, 2019
Texas Bans All Clergy from Death Chamber after Supreme Court Stays Execution by Matthew Clarke by Matt Clarke The U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay of execution for Texas prisoner Patrick H. Murphy on March 28, 2019, based upon his challenge to a prison policy that effectively allowed only Christian …
Page 1 of 11. | 1 2 3 4 5 ... 7 8 9 10 11 | Next »