Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

The American Bar Association has released a new publication, The State of Criminal Justice 2015, examining major issues, trends, and significant changes in America’s criminal justice system. The chapter devoted to capital punishment was written by Ronald Tabak, an attorney at Skadden Arps and board member of the Death Penalty Information Center. Tabak presents evidence of the declining use of the death penalty in death sentences and executions, particularly noting the growing geographic…

A new study to be published in the University of Denver Law Review shows that whether prosecutors seek the death penalty in Colorado “depends to an alarming extent on the race and geographic location of the defendant.” The study — based upon 10 years of data collected by attorney Meg Beardsley and University of Denver law professors Sam Kamin and Justin Marceau and sociology professor Scott Phillips — shows that race and place are statistically significant predictors of whether prosecutors will…

Former Texas prosecutor, Tim Cole — described by the Dallas Morning News as “a no-holds-barred lawman” in 4 terms as District Attorney for Archer, Clay, and Montague counties — now says that “Texas should join the 19 U.S. states where the death penalty has been abolished.” In an op-ed in The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Cole says Texas’ dramatic decline in imposing the death penalty, from a record 49 death sentences in 1994 and 48 in 1999 to none in the first 7 months of 2015, is “proving as a…

In an interview at Duke Law School, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg reflected on the past term at the U.S. Supreme Court. She discussed several landmark cases from the past year, including Glossip v. Gross, in which she joined Justice Stephen Breyer in a dissent that questioned the constitutionality of the death penalty. Ginsburg said she had waited to take such a stance on the death penalty because past justices, “took themselves out of the running,” when they did so, leaving, “no room for them to…

The Supreme Court of Delaware voted unanimously on July 27 to suspend former Deputy Attorney General R. David Favata as a result of his misconduct during a recent capital trial. With a single dissent as to the length of the suspension, the Court banned Favata from the practice of law for six months and one day for intentional misconduct during the capital trial of Isaiah McCoy. Earlier this year, the state Supreme Court overturned McCoy’s conviction and death sentence and ordered a new trial…

A recent article in the The New York Times Magazine examines the effects of the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), which was intended to streamline and shorten capital appeals. Its title summarizes the statute as “The Law That Keeps People on Death Row Despite Flawed Trials.” Emily Bazelon opens the article with the story of death-row prison Hector Ayala, who was tried before a jury from which prosecutors excluded all 7 black or Latino jurors. The federal appeals court…

Citing the high cost of death penalty appeals and difficulty obtaining custody of an out-of-state prisoner, the Kern County, California District Attorney’s office has agreed to reduce the 1989 death sentence imposed upon Clarence Ray (pictured) to a sentence of life without parole. Ray’s lawyers had filed a petition challenging the constitutionality of his California conviction and death sentence. The parties reached agreement that Ray’s death sentence would be reversed in exchange for his…

Philip Holloway, a CNN legal analyst who has been both a prosecutor and criminal defense attorney, says in a recent op-ed that “it is hard not to question the rationality — indeed the sanity” of the death penalty. Holloway says “there are several practical reasons why the death penalty just doesn’t make sense any longer, if it ever really did in the first place,” and outlines five reasons why he believes the United States should reconsider capital punishment. First, he says that life without…

On July 23, 2014, Arizona’s execution of Joseph Wood was botched, taking nearly two hours from the time the state began injecting him with lethal drugs until he was finally pronounced dead. Witnesses reported that Wood gasped more than 640 times during the course of the execution, and an official report later revealed that he was injected with 15 doses of the execution drugs. Michael Kiefer, a reporter for the Arizona Republic, who witnessed Wood’s execution, described it, saying, “He gulped…