12/9/2020 -
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R) announced that lethal injection is no longer an option in the state because of ongoing problems acquiring the drugs for execution.
12/8/2020 -
Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977, there have been 1527 executions. COVID-19 (coronavirus) deaths overtook executions as of Dec. 4, 2020, when virus deaths totaled at least 1568.
12/1/2020 -
The new rule will go into effect on Dec. 28, 2020 and will allow the federal government to use all execution methods allowed by the state in which the federal inmate is being held if lethal injection drugs are not available.
10/19/2020 -
Lisa Montgomery is scheduled to be executed on Dec. 8, 2020, the first woman executed by the federal government since Dec. 18, 1953.
9/25/2020 -
Christopher Andre Vialva was convicted of murdering two youth ministers in 1999, when Vialva was 19 years old.
9/2/2020 -
As of the morning of Aug. 23, 2020, 858 prisoners had died of COVID-19 (coronavirus), more than the 839 prisoners executed since 2001.
8/3/2020 -
An appeals court overturned Tsarnaev’s death sentence because the US district court did not properly vet jurors for bias. The lower court will have to hold a new trial on sentencing, though the appeals court judge emphasized that Tsarnaev will not be leaving prison.
7/14/2020 -
The Supreme Court cleared the way for the resumption of the federal death penalty on July 14, 2020.
6/29/2020 -
With the ruling, the federal government is cleared to resume executions.
5/18/2020 -
On Friday, May 15, 2020, Oregon Corrections Director Colette Peters announced the state’s death row will be closed in summer 2020 and the 27 death row inmates will be moved to the general prison population or other prison housing.
4/15/2020 -
Death penalty states have been asked to release lethal injection drugs that are needed for intubation and mechanical ventilation of COVID-19 patients.
3/24/2020 -
Governor Jared Polis signed SB-20-100 on Monday, Mar. 23, 2020, abolishing the death penalty and commuting the sentences of the three men on death row to life in prison.
2/7/2020 -
In 1953, there were 131 inmates on death row. In 2017, 2,703 prisoners were under sentence of death. Find how many prisoners were on death row, how many were executed, and how long they stayed on death row on average by year from 1953 to 2017.
12/30/2019 -
Executions in the United States were at the second-lowest number since 1991 in a year that saw New Hampshire abolish capital punishment and California implement a moratorium on its use.
11/26/2019 -
60% of Americans now say the life in prison without the possibility of parole is a better punishment than the death penalty.