Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

On August 31, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard argu­ment in Jones v. Davis, an appeal by California of the 2014 U.S. District Court rul­ing that declared California’s death penal­ty uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. In 2014, U.S. District Court Judge Cormac Carney held that the decades-long delays caused by California’s fail­ure to pro­vide lawyers for near­ly 350 of its death-row pris­on­ers made its death penal­ty sys­tem uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly cruel and…

A new study by Professor Frank Baumgartner of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Tim Lyman, a Documentation Specialist in New Orleans, reports stark dis­par­i­ties in Louisiana death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions depend­ing upon the race and gen­der of the homi­cide vic­tim. The study — to be pub­lished in the Loyola University of New Orleans Journal of Public Interest Law — finds that defen­dants accused of killing white vic­tims are near­ly twice as like­ly to be sentenced…

A Colorado jury has returned a life sen­tence in the cap­i­tal tri­al of Dexter Lewis in the stab­bing deaths of 5 peo­ple in a Denver bar in 2012. After less than 3 hours of delib­er­a­tion, the jury deter­mined that the aggra­vat­ing fac­tors relat­ing to the killing did not out­weigh Lewis’ mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence detail­ing the exten­sive his­to­ry of abuse and neglect in his upbring­ing, includ­ing chron­ic alco­hol abuse by his moth­er while she was preg­nant and nearly daily…

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reject­ed an appeal in the case of Texas death row inmate Duane Buck, who argued that his tri­al was taint­ed by inef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion and racial bias when Buck’s own men­tal health expert tes­ti­fied that he could be a future dan­ger to soci­ety because he is…

The Kansas Federation of College Republicans unan­i­mous­ly adopt­ed a res­o­lu­tion call­ing for repeal of the death penal­ty in their state. ​“More young con­ser­v­a­tives like myself rec­og­nize that our bro­ken and fal­li­ble sys­tem of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in no way match­es up with our con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues,” said Dalton Glasscock, a Wichita State University stu­dent and chair­man of the fed­er­a­tion. Citing pro-life views and fis­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty, the group urged Kansas leg­is­la­tors to repeal the…

In an op-ed for Newsweek, Stanford Law Professor John Donohue argues that there is ​“not the slight­est cred­i­ble sta­tis­ti­cal evi­dence that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment reduces the rate of homi­cide” and presents data to show that the death penal­ty is not an effec­tive deter­rent. Comparisons between neigh­bor­ing juris­dic­tions show no effect of capital punishment: ​“Whether one com­pares the sim­i­lar move­ments of homi­cide in Canada and the U.S., when only the lat­ter restored the…

(UPDATE: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has grant­ed Bernardo Tercero a stay of exe­cu­tion to per­mit him to lit­i­gate evi­dence that a lead pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness tes­ti­fied false­ly against him.) The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), a unit of the Organization of American States, has called on Texas offi­cials to stay the exe­cu­tion of Nicaraguan cit­i­zen Bernardo Tercero (pic­tured), who is sched­uled to be executed…

In the first episode of sea­son 2 of ​“Death Row Stories,” CNN exam­ined the case of Ruben Cantu, who was exe­cut­ed in Texas in 1993 despite seri­ous doubts about his guilt. The episode fea­tured an inter­view with Sam Milsap, the District Attorney at the time of Cantu’s tri­al, who assert­ed his belief in Cantu’s inno­cence. Cantu’s co-defen­­dant and a key eye­wit­ness from the case both sup­port­ed Cantu’s claim of inno­cence. The hour-long episode of the…

A Food and Drug Administration let­ter to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction indi­cat­ed the state was con­sid­er­ing import­ing sodi­um thiopen­tal from over­seas for use in exe­cu­tions. The let­ter warned the depart­ment that import­ing the drug would vio­late federal law: ​“Please note that there is no FDA approved appli­ca­tion for sodi­um thiopen­tal, and it is ille­gal to import an unap­proved new drug into the United States.” A sim­i­lar let­ter was sent to…

A recent op-ed by for­mer Texas Governor Mark White (pic­tured) and for­mer Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerald Kogan crit­i­cized a recent­ly passed North Carolina law that impos­es secre­cy on the source of lethal injec­tion drugs and removes exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dures from pub­lic review and com­ment. The authors said the new law will only pro­long lit­i­ga­tion, rather than end­ing North Carolina’s hold on exe­cu­tions, as intend­ed. The op-ed also main­tained that the new…