Entries by Death Penalty Information Center
News
Nov 03, 2015
Missouri Scheduled to Execute Man Despite Evidence of Intellectual Disability
Ernest Johnson (pictured) is scheduled to be executed in Missouri on November 3, despite strong evidence that he is intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible…
Read MoreNews
Nov 02, 2015
Supreme Court Hears Argument in Georgia Jury Discrimination Case
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Foster v. Chatman on November 2. Timothy Foster, an intellectually limited black teenager charged with killing an elderly white woman, was convicted and sentenced to death in 1987 by an all-white jury after Georgia prosecutors struck every black member of the jury pool. Foster argued that prosecutors impermissibly exercised their strikes on the basis of race, in violation of the…
Read MoreNews
Oct 30, 2015
STUDIES: FBI Crime Report Shows Murder Rates Remain Higher in Death Penalty States
The U.S. Department of Justice released its annual FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2014, reporting no change in the national murder rate since 2013. In the Northeast, the region with the fewest executions, the murder rate declined 5.7%, from 3.5 to 3.3 per 100,000 population. The murder rate was 1.7 times higher in the South, which carries out the most executions of any region. That region saw a 3.4% increase in the homicide rate, and…
Read MoreNews
Oct 29, 2015
Amid Threatening Comments by Current DA, Death Penalty Dominates Caddo Parish Prosecutor Election
Capital punishment is dominating the discussion in the runoff election between James E. Stewart, Sr. and Dhu Thompson to succeed acting Caddo Parish, Louisiana District Attorney Dale Cox. Cox’s controversial statements about the death penalty — including that the state needs to“kill more people” — have focused national attention on the parish, which ranks among the two percent of U.S. counties responsible for 56 percent of the…
Read MoreNews
Oct 28, 2015
Pennsylvania Death-Row Prisoners Disproportionately Represented at Trial by Attorneys with Disciplinary Problems
15.1% of capital defendants sentenced to death in Pennsylvania since 1980 were represented at trial by a lawyer who has been disciplined for professional misconduct, and that has risen to 18.2% in the past decade, according to an investigative report by The Reading Eagle. These rates of discipline were between 5 and 6 times higher than the 3% disciplinary rate for Pennsylvania lawyers as a whole over the past 30 years. The disciplinary…
Read MoreNews
Oct 27, 2015
30 Years After His Death Sentence, Exoneree Derrick Jamison Fights for Those Still on Death Row
Derrick Jamison was exonerated from death row in Ohio on October 25, 2005, 20 years to the day after he was sentenced to death in Hamilton County (Cincinnati). On the 30th anniversary of his sentencing and the 10th anniversary of his release, a Salon profile describes the work Jamison now does to educate people about the risks of…
Read MoreNews
Oct 26, 2015
President Obama Calls Death Penalty “Deeply Troubling”
In an interview with Bill Keller of The Marshall Project, President Obama said the administration of the death penalty is“deeply troubling,” and questioned the manner in which capital punishment is applied in the United States. While the President said that he is not opposed to capital punishment“in theory,” he expressed concern about issues including racial bias, wrongful convictions, and botched executions.“We know, statistically,…
Read MoreNews
Oct 23, 2015
Arizona, Texas Attempted to Import Illegal Lethal Injection Drugs Linked to Indian Supplier with Troubling History
Arizona and Texas attempted to import lethal injection drugs in violation of federal law, but the shipments were halted by U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials in late July, according to reports by The Arizona Republic and Buzzfeed. The Republic reports that the Arizona Department of Corrections paid $27,000 for sodium thiopental for use in executions, but the shipment was halted at the Phoenix airport by…
Read MoreNews
Oct 22, 2015
New Position of National Association of Evangelicals Shows Cracks in Death Penalty Support
Recognizing that“a growing number of evangelicals now call” for a shift away from the death penalty, the National Association of Evangelicals — an umbrella group for congregations representing millions of evangelical Christians in the United States — has backed away from its prior strong support for capital punishment. A newly adopted NAE resolution states,“Evangelical Christians differ in their beliefs about capital punishment, often citing strong…
Read MoreNews
Oct 21, 2015
STUDIES: Explaining Virginia’s Disappearing Death Penalty
A new study by University of Virginia law professor Brandon Garrett (pictured) shows a dramatic decline in the death penalty in Virginia over the last decade. Virginia has carried out the third highest number of executions since the 1970s and historically has executed a higher percentage of its death-row prisoners than any other state. However, Garrett said there are now fewer than two capital sentencing trials per year and Virginia juries have…
Read More