The U.S. Supreme Court Oct. 9 considered a bipartisan appeal to reverse the death penalty conviction of Richard Glossip, a case in which Oklahoma's Republican attorney general and Republican lawmakers have also intervened on his behalf.
The Supreme Court Jan. 24 rejected an appeal by death-row inmate Kenneth Smith, whose planned execution by the state of Alabama -- the first known execution by nitrogen gas -- was openly decried by more than 100 Alabama faith leaders just days earlier.
Catholic and other opponents of the death penalty applauded Oregon Gov. Kate Brown's decision to commute the sentences of the state's 17 inmates on death row, changing their sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
After a flurry of court decisions, the Supreme Court reversed a pair of rulings from federal appeals courts that had put death-row inmate Lisa Montgomery's execution on hold, and it denied two other last-minute requests to postpone the execution.
Five days before the scheduled execution of death-row inmate Rodney Reed -- who gained attention of Catholic leaders and celebrities alike -- the top criminal appeals court in Texas granted an indefinite stay of his execution and said they were sending his case back to trial court for further review.
Although the Supreme Court justices chose not to take up two petitions for review submitted by death-row inmates from Alabama and Tennessee May 13, they didn't do so with a simple one-sentence rejection.
The opera is based on the 1993 book of the same name by Sister Helen Prejean of the Congregation of St. Joseph that describes her role as a spiritual director to two men on death row before their executions.
When the Arkansas Supreme Court stayed the executions of two of the eight men slated for April executions, Don Davis and Bruce Ward, it said it was awaiting guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in McWilliams v. Dunn, the case it heard April 24.
