Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

The New York Times reports that the num­ber of coun­tries using cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment con­tin­ued to shrink and its use became more iso­lat­ed from 2013 to 2014, even as the num­ber of death sen­tences world­wide rose. 105 coun­tries have abol­ished the death penal­ty, most recent­ly Suriname and Mongolia, and the United Nations lists 60 addi­tion­al countries as ​“de fac­to abo­li­tion­ist” because they have not had any exe­cu­tions in at least 10 years. That leaves just 28 coun­tries that still practice…

A new report by a spe­cial com­mit­tee cre­at­ed by Orange County, California District Attorney Tony Rackauckas (pic­tured) cites a ​“fail­ure of lead­er­ship” as the root cause of a mul­ti-decade his­to­ry of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct involv­ing jail­house infor­mants. Documents obtained by defense lawyers and The Orange County Register had revealed what the paper called ​“a secret and well-orga­nized net­work of snitch­es” that had been hid­den from defense coun­sel and the courts. In…

Natrona County, Wyoming District Attorney Mike Blonigen (pic­tured) recent­ly called for a recon­sid­er­a­tion of the state’s death penal­ty after a fed­er­al judge over­turned the death sen­tence of Dale Wayne Eaton, a decade after Blonigen obtained it in 2004. At the time U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson reversed Eaton’s sen­tence in 2014, Eaton was the only per­son on Wyoming’s death…

Several news­pa­pers across the coun­try fea­tured themes from DPIC’s 2015 Year End Report in edi­to­ri­als and opin­ion pieces at the end of…

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In 1997, a St. Louis County, Missouri jury unan­i­mous­ly vot­ed to sen­tence David Barnett to death. Eighteen years lat­er, after learn­ing hor­rif­ic details of the phys­i­cal and sex­u­al abuse to which Barnett had been sub­ject­ed as a small child, Andrew Dazey — the jury fore­man in Barnett’s tri­al — says “[t]here’s no way” he would have vot­ed for death. At tri­al, Barnett’s lawyer pre­sent­ed some evi­dence of his clien­t’s abuse, men­tal ill­ness, and sui­cide attempts. However, he failed to…

Prosecutors across the coun­try are seek­ing the death penal­ty less fre­quent­ly and in recent inter­views two dis­trict attor­neys, one from Texas and one from Pennsylvania, have giv­en some of their rea­sons why. Randall County, Texas District Attorney James Farren (pic­tured) told KFDA-TV in Amarillo that his expe­ri­ence han­dling one par­tic­u­lar­ly lengthy and cost­ly cap­i­tal case has changed how he will make deci­sions in future cas­es that are eligible…

For the third time in two years, the Delaware Supreme Court has reversed the con­vic­tion of a death row inmate because his tri­al was taint­ed by prosecutorial…

Although Georgia car­ried out 5 of the 28 exe­cu­tions in the U.S. in 2015, it imposed no new death sen­tences and a sig­nif­i­cant­ly changed legal land­scape points to a ​“new Georgia” with the death penal­ty in decline. The Georgia legal pub­li­ca­tion, Daily Report, dubbed the decline in death sentences its ​“news­mak­er of the year,” and explored the rea­sons for the…

In a unan­i­mous deci­sion issued December 21, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld Gov. Tom Wolf’s (pic­tured) impo­si­tion of a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions while he awaits the results of a leg­isla­tive com­mis­sion’s report on Pennsylvania’s death penal­ty. On February 13, 2015, Wolf issued a tem­po­rary reprieve to Terrance Williams and announced that he would put all exe­cu­tions on hold. At that time, he said that Pennsylvania’s ​“cap­i­tal punishment…