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On January 4, 2017, Secretary Julie Jones of the Florida Department of Corrections wrote to Governor Rick Scott to inform him that the Florida lethal injection protocol, which is attached to the letter, meets constitutional standards and certified that the Department of Corrections is prepared to administer an execution by lethal injection and has the necessary procedures, equipment, facilities, and personnel in place to do so.

On November 17, 2016, the Florida Supreme Court in another double murder case reduced two death sentences to life sentences on the ground of disproportionality. McCloud v. State.

On November 17, 2016, the Florida Supreme Court issued a per curiam opinion in Phillips v. State, a double murder case, reducing the defendant's two death sentences to sentences of life imprisonment on disproportionality grounds.

On August 2, 2016, the Delaware Supreme Court issued its decision in Rauf v. State finding that the Delaware death penalty statute is unconstitutional pursuant to Hurst v. Florida, 136 S.Ct. 616 (2016). The Delaware Supreme Court answered five questions certified by the superior court where Benjamin Rauf's capital prosecution is pending.

On June 6, 2016, the Supreme Court granted the certiorari petition of Texas death row inmate Bobby Moore, limited to the first question in the petition: (1) Whether it violates the Eighth Amendment and this Court's decisions in Hall v. Florida, 134 S.Ct. 1986 (2014) and Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002) to prohibit the use of current medical standards on intellectual disability, and require the use of outdated medical standards, in determining whether an individual may be executed.

On March 23, 2016, a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion vacating the lower court's ruling that barred implementation of Department of Justice's regulations governing certification procedures for States seeking the benefits of Chapter 154 of Title 28 of the United States Code. The panel held that the plaintiffs lacked standing and that the challenge to the regulations was not ripe as no certification had occurred.

The Ninth Circuit (Graber, with Rawlinson; Watford concurring) has reversed District Court Judge Cormac Carney’s ruling that California’s current post-conviction review process in death penalty cases violates the Eighth Amendment. Jones v. Davis (9th Cir. Nov. 12, 2015). Specifically, Judge Carney found that the post-conviction review process had become so inordinately and unnecessarily delayed that only an arbitrarily selected few of the many sentenced to death would actually be executed.

United States District Court Judge Mahan of the District of Nevada granted Michael Hogan’s request for an evidentiary hearing on a claim of IAC for failing to investigate and challenge an Iowa prior conviction that was used as an aggravating circumstance in Hogan’s Nevada capital trial. Hogan v. Baker, 2015 WL 5692101 (D. Nev. Sept. 28, 2015).

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear argument on December 10, 2015, in DOJ’s appeal of the ruling by United States District Judge Wilken of the Northern District of California that struck down the Chapter 154 regulations promulgated by DOJ. Habeas Corpus Resource Center, et al. v. United States Department of Justice, et al., 14-16928. Judge Wilken’s orders in the case, as well as pleadings from the appeal and consolidated appeals, can be found on the secure portion of this website.

On remand from the Supreme Court for consideration of Davis v. Ayala, 135 S.Ct. 2187 (2015), the Sixth Circuit (Donald, with Daughtrey and Gibbons) again finds the state prisoner entitled to habeas relief. McCarley v. Kelly, ___ F.3d ___, 2015 WL 5255206 (6th Cir. Sept. 10, 2015). Petitioner was convicted of the aggravated murder of a woman who had filed a paternity suit naming petitioner as the father of her two year old son. The son was present when the victim was killed two months later. At trial, a child psychologist was allowed to testify about statements made by the victim’s son during therapy sessions that were initiated at the suggestion of the police. (The police were unable to extract information from the young boy and hoped the psychologist would be more successful. The psychologist was told to tell the police anything the boy revealed about the crime for use in the investigation.)