Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Anthony Ray Hinton (pic­tured, l.) has been exon­er­at­ed after spend­ing near­ly 30 years on Alabama​’s death row. He will be released on April 3. Hinton was con­vict­ed of the 1985 mur­ders of two fast-food restau­rant man­agers based upon the tes­ti­mo­ny of a state foren­sic exam­in­er that the bul­lets in the two mur­ders came from a gun found in Hinton’s house. The pros­e­cu­tor, who had a doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry of racial bias, said he could tell Hinton was guilty and ​“evil” just…

Former prison war­den, Frank Thompson, has urged repeal of Delaware’s death penal­ty. In an op-ed for The News Journal of Delaware, the for­mer war­den, who has per­son­al­ly over­seen two exe­cu­tions, describes ​“the immea­sur­able bur­den that th[e exe­cu­tion] process places on cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers” and the trau­ma expe­ri­enced by cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers who must car­ry out exe­cu­tions. Thompson says, ​“Many of us who have tak­en part in this process live with nightmares,…

Executions around the world declined by 22% last year, accord­ing to Amnesty International​’s 2014 annu­al report on death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions. The report — released on April 1 — indi­cates that an esti­mat­ed 607 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed world­wide in 2014, com­pared to 778 in 2013. The glob­al totals do not include exe­cu­tions in China, where data on the death penal­ty is con­sid­ered a state secret. On a region­al lev­el, Amnesty report­ed notable declines in Sub-Saharan Africa, where…

On March 30, the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) adopt­ed a res­o­lu­tion dis­cour­ag­ing phar­ma­cist par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions. The House of Delegates of the 62,000 mem­ber orga­ni­za­tion passed the pol­i­cy, which states, ​“The American Pharmacists Association dis­cour­ages phar­ma­cist par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions on the basis that such activ­i­ties are fun­da­men­tal­ly con­trary to the role of phar­ma­cists as providers of health care.” William Fassett, pro­fes­sor emeritus of…

On Monday, March 30, the U.S. Supreme Court grant­ed review of three Kansas death penal­ty cas­es and heard oral argu­ment in a Louisiana case that pre­sent­ed ques­tions on the role of the fed­er­al courts in deter­min­ing whether a state pris­on­er who faces the death penal­ty has intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. In the cas­es of Kansas v. Reginald Carr, Kansas v. Jonathan Carr, and Kansas v. Sidney…

In a new arti­cle for the University of Chicago Law Review, Professors Carol S. Steiker (left) of the University of Texas School of Law and Jordan M. Steiker (right) of Harvard Law School exam­ine the racial his­to­ry of the American death penal­ty and what they describe as the U.S. Supreme Court’s ​“deaf­en­ing silence” on the sub­ject of race and cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. They assert that the sto­ry of the death penalty ​“can­not be told with­out detailed atten­tion to race.” The Steikers’ arti­cle recounts the…

A recent arti­cle in Mother Jones exam­ines lin­ger­ing ques­tions in the deter­mi­na­tion of which inmates are exempt from exe­cu­tion because of mental…

According to a new poll by Public Policy Polling, a major­i­ty of Pennsylvanians find some form of a life sen­tence to be prefer­able to the death penal­ty, and more sup­port the death penal­ty mora­to­ri­um imposed by Governor Tom Wolf than oppose it. When asked what sen­tence they pre­ferred for peo­ple con­vict­ed of mur­der, 54% of respon­dents select­ed some form of life sen­tence, while 42% pre­ferred the death penal­ty. 50% were in favor of the Commonwealth’s death penalty…

UPDATE: After Louisiana denied com­pen­sa­tion to Mr. Ford — who is in hos­pice care, dying from Stage 4 can­cer — Stroud gave an inter­view to the Huffington Post in which he says ​“death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tions are a badge of show­ing how out-of-touch we are with oth­er civ­i­lized soci­eties.… We can’t trust the gov­ern­ment to fix pot­holes. Why should we believe they can design a death penal­ty sys­tem that’s fair?” PREVIOUSLY: In a let­ter to the Shreveport (Louisiana)…

In a let­ter to the President of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty, Pope Francis expressed the Catholic Church’s oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty, calling it ​“inad­mis­si­ble, no mat­ter how seri­ous the crime com­mit­ted.” He continued, ​“It is an offence against the invi­o­la­bil­i­ty of life and the dig­ni­ty of the human per­son, which con­tra­dicts God’s plan for man and soci­ety, and his mer­ci­ful jus­tice, and impedes the penal­ty from ful­fill­ing any just objec­tive. It…