Death Penalty Information Center

On April 8, 2026, the Mississippi Legislature enact­ed Senate Bill 2821, cre­at­ing the new offense of ​“cap­i­tal sex­u­al bat­tery” and autho­riz­ing the death penal­ty for the sex­u­al abuse, or attempt­ed sex­u­al abuse of a child under 12 years of age that results in ​“injury to the child’s sex­u­al organs.” Mississippi Governor Tate Reaves approved the leg­is­la­tion, whic...

A South Carolina cir­cuit court judge has found that death-sen­tenced pris­on­er John Wood can­not be exe­cut­ed because of his severe schiz­o­phre­nia. The con­sti­tu­tion­al thresh­olds estab­lished by the U.S. Supreme Court in *Ford v. Wainwright* (1986) and clar­i­fied in *Panetti v. Quarterman* (2007) and *Madison v. Alabama* (2018) deter­mine that a pris­on­er may not be e...

On death row, pris­on­ers expe­ri­ence some of the harsh­est con­di­tions in the American prison sys­tem, which often take a severe psy­cho­log­i­cal and phys­i­cal toll. Despite these chal­lenges, many death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers com­plete­ly trans­form in prison — they become remorse­ful, accept respon­si­bil­i­ty, and devote them­selves to edu­ca­tion, men­tor­ship, faith, a...

On April 24, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) released a report propos­ing an expan­sion of the fed­er­al death penal­ty, includ­ing adding fir­ing squad, elec­tro­cu­tion, and lethal gas as exe­cu­tion meth­ods. The DOJ char­ac­ter­izes the Biden Administration’s mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions as ​“an unprece­dent­ed break from the \[DOJ\]’s long­stand­ing approach to the de...

On April 27, 2026, coun­sel for Oklahoma death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Brenda Andrew, the only woman on the state’s death row, filed a peti­tion ask­ing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit to recon­sid­er whether her con­sti­tu­tion­al right to a fair tri­al was vio­lat­ed by the prosecution’s use of ​“ram­pant gen­der bias” dur­ing her tri­al. In January 2025, the U.S...