Dallas voters strongly support alternatives to the death penalty, according to a recent poll conducted by the independent research firm Public Policy Polling. When asked which punishment they prefer for people convicted of first-degree murder, 75% of respondents opted for a sentence of life in prison with a possibility of parole after 20 or 40 years or life […]
Tag: death sentences
Amnesty International recently released its annual Global Report: Death Sentences and Executions 2020, which updates key figures on the use of capital punishment worldwide. Overall, executions and death sentences dropped significantly worldwide in 2020. The United States continued to be the only Western country to carry out executions. While COVID-19 created notable obstacles for executions, […]
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly curtailed use of the death penalty in Texas this year, resulting in a record-low number of new death sentences and the state’s fewest executions since 1996, according to a new report from the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Texas and federal courts continue to confront the state’s arbitrary application of capital punishment and deeply flawed practices, particularly in assessing intellectual disability evidence. Read Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2020: The Year in Review.