Entries by Death Penalty Information Center
News
Feb 16, 2018
Is Racially Biased Testimony Wrongly Subjecting Intellectually Disabled Defendants to the Death Penalty?
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2002 decision in Atkins v. Virginia categorically bars states from executing any person who has Intellectual Disability. (Daryl Atkins is pictured.) However, as reported in recent stories in Pacific Standard Magazine and the newspaper, The Atlanta Black Star, some states have attempted to circumvent the Atkins ruling by using social stereotypes and race as grounds to argue that defendants of color are not…
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Feb 15, 2018
Washington State Senate Passes Death Penalty Abolition Bill
A bipartisan bill to abolish the death penalty in Washington passed the state Senate on February 14 on a 26 – 22 vote. SB 6052 now moves to the House of Representatives, where the chairwoman of the House Judiciary Committee has said it will be given a hearing.“Today, the Washington State Senate took an historic, bipartisan vote, passing Attorney General-requested legislation to eliminate the death penalty and replace it with life in prison…
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Feb 14, 2018
Pentagon Fires War Court Official Who Was Attempting to Negotiate End to Guantánamo Death-Penalty Trial
The sudden firing by U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis (left) of the Pentagon official who oversaw military commission trials at Guantánamo Bay has raised concerns of political interference in the already tumultuous legal proceedings in the death-penalty trials of the five men charged with plotting the 9/11 attacks on the…
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Feb 13, 2018
As Support for Death Penalty Falls in Utah, New Study Again Says Life Without Parole Costs Less
An analysis by the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice of the cost of capital punishment has found that cases in which prosecutors seek the death penalty are more costly than cases in which life without parole was the maximum sentence. The Commission’s Death Penalty Working Group reviewed recent studies of death-penalty costs in Utah and across the country and found that, while there was disagreement about the magnitude of the cost…
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Feb 12, 2018
Pennsylvania Death-Row Prisoners File Lawsuit Challenging Automatic, Permanent Solitary Confinement
Five prisoners on death row in Pennsylvania have filed a class-action lawsuit challenging the Commonwealth’s policy mandating solitary confinement for all condemned prisoners. The five named plaintiffs have been held in solitary confinement between 16 and 27 years each, kept in cells the size of a parking space, allowed out for a maximum of two hours per day for exercise, and denied human contact with family members during prison visits. The…
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Feb 09, 2018
Ohio Governor Grants Reprieve to Raymond Tibbetts Following Juror’s Call for Mercy
Ohio Governor John Kasich (pictured, left) has granted a reprieve to Raymond Tibbetts (pictured, right), temporarily halting his execution to permit the Ohio Parole Board to consider a juror’s plea for mercy in the case. In a February 8 letter to parole board Chairman Andre Imbrogno, the Governor requested that the Board convene a hearing to consider concerns about the case raised by Ross Geiger, one of the Tibbetts jurors. To facilitate…
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Feb 08, 2018
American Bar Association Resolution: Ban Death Penalty for Offenders Age 21 or Younger
On February 5, the American Bar Association (ABA) House of Delegates voted overwhelmingly to adopt a resolution calling for an end to the death penalty for offenders who were 21 or younger at the time of the crime. According to a report accompanying the resolution,“there is a growing medical consensus that key areas of the brain relevant to decision-making and judgment continue to develop into the early twenties.” The ABA first opposed applying the death…
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Feb 07, 2018
Nevada Prisoner Whose Case Confirmed Unconstitutionality of Mandatory Death Sentences Dies
Raymond Wallace Shuman (pictured), whose case led to a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court decision affirming the unconstitutionality of mandatory death sentences, has died in a Nevada prison at age 83. Shuman, one of the longest-incarcerated prisoners in Nevada history, was serving a life sentence for a 1958 murder when he was convicted of killing a fellow prisoner in 1973. At that time, Nevada law mandated the death…
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Feb 06, 2018
New Mexico Bill to Restore Death Penalty Dies in Committee
The latest effort by death-penalty proponents to reinstate the death penalty in New Mexico has died in a House committee. House Bill 155, which would have brought back the death penalty for murders of children, police officers, and corrections employees, was tabled by the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee by a 3 – 2 vote following a Saturday hearing on the bill on February 3, 2018. The bill, introduced by Albuquerque Rep. Monica…
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Feb 05, 2018
Ohio Juror Asks Governor to Commute Death Sentence of Raymond Tibbetts
A juror who served on the capital murder trial of Raymond Tibbetts (pictured) and voted to sentence Tibbetts to death has written to Ohio Governor John Kasich asking Kasich to halt Tibbetts’s scheduled February 13 execution and commute his sentence to life without parole. In a January 30 letter to Governor Kasich, juror Ross Geiger — who, at the time of trial, described himself as a conservative Republican — said after…
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