Entries by Death Penalty Information Center


News 

May 212018

Texas Legislators Ask Why Intellectually Disabled Bobby James Moore is Still on Death Row

In March 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had employed an unsci­en­tif­ic and uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly harsh stan­dard in reject­ing Bobby James Moore​’s claim that he is inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. Despite a sub­se­quent con­ces­sion by Harris County pros­e­cu­tors in November 2017 that Moore (pic­tured) qualifies as…

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May 182018

New York Times Columnist Says Kevin Cooper May Have Been Framed, Urges DNA Testing That Could Prove His Innocence

Citing exten­sive evi­dence that California death-row pris­on­er Kevin Cooper (pic­tured) may have been framed, New York Times Pulitzer Prize-win­n­ing colum­nist Nicholas Kristof has urged Governor Jerry Brown to per­mit advanced DNA test­ing of evi­dence that could poten­tial­ly prove Cooper’s inno­cence. In a col­umn elec­tron­i­cal­ly post­ed by the Times on May 17, 2018 and sched­uled to appear in the paper’s May 20

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May 162018

Prosecutors Withdraw Death Penalty, Agree to Guilty Pleas in Two High Profile Cases With Multiple Victims

State and fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors have agreed to with­draw the death penal­ty in exchange for guilty pleas by defen­dants charged with mul­ti­ple killings in two unre­lat­ed high-pro­­­file mur­der cas­es. On May 4, Lake County, Indiana pros­e­cu­tors dropped the death penal­ty against Darren Vann (pic­tured, left), who had killed sev­en women. On May 1, fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors announced they would not pur­sue the death penalty against…

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News 

May 152018

Illinois Governor Uses Gun-Control Veto to Attempt to Re-Enact Death Penalty

llli­nois Governor Bruce Rauner has con­di­tion­al­ly vetoed a gun-con­trol ini­tia­tive unless the leg­is­la­ture agrees to rein­state cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the state. Exercising an amenda­to­ry veto — a pow­er some gov­er­nors are grant­ed that per­mits them to amend leg­is­la­tion in lieu of an out­right veto — Rauner called for mak­ing the killing of a police offi­cer or any mur­der in which more than one per­son was killed a new crime of​“death penal­ty mur­der.” In…

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News 

May 142018

Supreme Court Sides With Death-Row Prisoner Whose Trial Lawyer Told Jury He Was Guilty

The United States Supreme Court has grant­ed a new tri­al to Louisiana death-row pris­on­er Robert McCoy (pic­tured), whose lawyer admit­ted his guilt despite McCoy’s​“ada­ment” and​“vocif­er­ous” insis­tence that he was inno­cent. Facing what coun­sel believed was over­whelm­ing evi­dence of guilt and hop­ing to per­suade the jury to spare McCoy’s life, defense lawyer Larry English told jurors his client had​“com­mit­ted three murders.……

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News 

May 112018

STUDIES: Death-Penalty Jury Selection Whitewashes” Juries and is Biased Towards Death

As sup­port for the death penal­ty has declined in America, the process of​“death-qual­i­­fi­­ca­­tion” — which screens poten­tial jurors in death-penal­­­ty cas­es based upon their views about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment — pro­duces increas­ing­ly unrep­re­sen­ta­tive juries from which African Americans are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly exclud­ed and, accord­ing to a new study by researchers at the University of California, increas­ing­ly bias­es juries in favor of conviction and…

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News 

May 092018

Texas Judge Finds Prosecutors Lied That Victim’s Family Supported Death Penalty, Recommends Resentencing to Life

Finding that pros­e­cu­tors with­held evi­dence that the fam­i­ly of mur­der vic­tim Jonas Cherry opposed the death penal­ty for his accused killer and then lied to jurors that Cherry’s fam­i­ly sup­port­ed the death penal­ty, a tri­al judge in Tarrant County, Texas has rec­om­mend­ed over­turn­ing the death sen­tence imposed on Paul David Storey (pic­tured) and replac­ing it with a sen­tence of life…

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News 

May 082018

NEW RESOURCES: BJS Releases Capital Punishment, 2016

The nation’s death rows con­tin­ue to shrink more rapid­ly than new defen­dants are being sen­tenced to death, accord­ing to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) sta­tis­ti­cal brief,​“Capital Punishment, 2016,” released April 30, 2018. (Click image to enlarge.) The sta­tis­ti­cal brief, which ana­lyzes infor­ma­tion on those under sen­tence of death in the United States as of December 31, 2016, con­tains offi­cial gov­ern­ment fig­ures documenting continuing…

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