"Death Penalty" Blogs & Blog Posts

In March, Colorado came close to becoming the 19th state to abolish the death penalty, but the bill failed after Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) voiced opposition and suggested a possible veto. A few months later, Colorado’s death penalty is still firml...

Several exonerated men whose innocence of murder was proven years after they were sentenced to death are imploring Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) not to sign a Florida bill that would set automatic timelines for imposing the death penalty, and likely would h...

Earlier this week, a Mississippi man escaped death by just a few hours when the state Supreme Court agreed to block his execution, scheduled for that Tuesday evening. Although hair sample evidence was available for testing, and Willie Manning’s con...

Hours before his scheduled execution at 6 p.m. today, the Mississippi Supreme Court has issued a stay to Willie Jerome Manning, whose death sentence was upheld in a 5-4 court ruling last week even though the state refused to test available DNA eviden...

Mississippi is set to execute a man Tuesday night without testing available DNA evidence from a hair sample in his case. ThinkProgress reported last week that a 5-4 court upheld the decision not to test the evidence, in spite of a prosecutor’s...

Maryland became the 18th state to abolish the death penalty Thursday, as Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) signed the bill he vied for into law. The law will not affect five prisoners currently on death row, but O’Malley will consider whether to commute t...

Mississippi has set an execution date for Willie Jerome Manning next week, without ever having tested readily available DNA from the scene of the abduction and murder in which Manning was convicted. In a 5-4 decision Thursday, the Mississippi Supreme...