An incarcerated man waiting on federal death row has for the third time unsuccessfully sought relief from his capital punishment, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled. This time, it rejected his argument under the “savings clause” that recent changes in clinical diagnostic standards show that he is intellectually disabled and ineligible for the death penalty.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against an Alabama inmate whose lawyers argued that his trial counsel should have done more to try to show he is intellectually disabled and therefore he should be spared a death sentence.
The Justice Department is halting federal executions after a historic use of capital punishment by the Trump administration, which carried out 13 executions in six months.
The Indiana Supreme Court has denied a final request for relief sought by a man facing the death penalty for the murder of his wife and stepchildren nearly 15 years ago.
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal from a Virginia drug dealer who is serving a 41-year murder sentence that he claims is the result of vindictive prosecution.
Activists widely expected Joe Biden to take swift action against the death penalty as the first sitting president to oppose capital punishment, especially since an unprecedented spate of executions by his predecessor ended just days before Biden took office.
Joe Biden’s administration is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate the death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev despite the president’s vocal opposition to capital punishment.
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday affirmed the dismissal of a convicted killer’s habeas petition alleging ineffective assistance of counsel, agreeing that his attorney’s alleged errors did not prejudice him.
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from a Missouri death row inmate who is seeking execution by firing squad.
The man on federal death row for the racist slayings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation is making his appellate argument that his conviction and death sentence should be overturned.
A Boone County murder defendant convicted and sentenced to life without parole failed to convince a majority of the Indiana Supreme Court that the trial court improperly denied his request to proceed pro se. The majority provided an analysis for considering pro se requests in capital and LWOP sentences, but minority justices raised concerns about the majority “till(ing) new constitutional soil.”
An appeals court has overturned the sentence of Texas’ longest serving death row inmate whose attorneys say has languished in prison for more than 45 years because he’s too mentally ill to be executed.
Ramsey Clark, the attorney general in the Johnson administration who became an outspoken activist for unpopular causes and a harsh critic of U.S. policy, has died. He was 93.
A convicted serial killer whose victims included two young boys died Sunday at a hospital in Indiana, authorities said.
The United States 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.
On federal death row in Terre Haute, prisoners fling notes on a string under each other’s cell doors and converse through interconnected air ducts. A top issue these days: whether President Joe Biden will halt executions, several told The Associated Press.
Though most of us might strain ourselves thinking of a reason why one might refuse a pardon or a commutation, multiple individuals have attempted to reject a pardon or commutation, providing both interesting stories and a strange, potential check on the executive.
Despite a ruling in her favor from the Indiana Supreme Court capping her years-long quest to find out how the state of Indiana might carry out an execution, Washington, D.C., attorney Katherine Toomey was still waiting for answers two weeks later.
The Indiana Supreme Court has evenly split in a long-running dispute over disclosure of records concerning the state’s lethal injection drugs, clearing the way for disclosure of the records and the payment by the state of more than a half-million dollars in legal fees.
Executioners who put 13 inmates to death in the last months of the Trump administration likened the process of dying by lethal injection to falling asleep and called gurneys “beds” and final breaths “snores.” The sworn accounts by executioners, which government filings cited as evidence the lethal injections were going smoothly, raise questions about whether officials misled courts to ensure the executions scheduled from July to mid-January were done before death penalty opponent Joe Biden became president.