1/18/2021 -
On Jan. 16, 2021, the federal government executed Dustin Higgs, the thirteenth and final prisoner executed under the Trump administration, which carried out the first federal executions since 2003.
1/13/2021 -
Lisa Montgomery, executed on Jan. 13, 2021, was the first woman to be executed by the federal government since the Dec. 18, 1953 execution of Bonnie Brown Heady, according to US Bureau of Prisons records. She was the only woman on federal death row and the eleventh person executed by the Trump administration.
12/16/2020 -
The federal government resumed the death penalty in July 2020 and has executed 10 people since. The states executed a total of seven people: three by Texas, and one each by Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, and Tennessee.
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.