Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

The U.S. mil­i­tary has its own laws and court sys­tem sep­a­rate from those of the states and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. Although the mil­i­tary jus­tice sys­tem allows the death penal­ty, no exe­cu­tions have been car­ried out in over 50 years. The last exe­cu­tion was the hang­ing on April 13, 1961 of U.S. Army Private John Bennett for rape and attempt­ed mur­der. The mil­i­tary death penal­ty law was struck down in 1983 but was rein­stat­ed in 1984 with new rules detail­ing the aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances that make a…

On November 6, Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler (pic­tured) filed a brief with an appel­late court, for­mal­ly request­ing that the death sen­tence of Jody Lee Miles be vacat­ed. Gansler argued that Miles’s death sen­tence is no longer valid. Miles was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1998. In 2006, Maryland’s Court of Appeals sus­pend­ed exe­cu­tions because the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures had not been law­ful­ly imple­ment­ed. In 2013, the state repealed…

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s high­est crim­i­nal court, vacat­ed the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of Alfred Brown, who has been on death row for mur­der since 2005. Brown has main­tained his inno­cence and has said that a land­line phone call he made from his girl­friend’s apart­ment the morn­ing of the mur­der would prove it. At his tri­al, Brown’s attor­neys pre­sent­ed no evi­dence of his ali­bi, and his girl­friend changed her tes­ti­mo­ny after she was…

(Click left image to enlarge). A new study by researchers at Cornell University exam­ined the effects of Delaware​’s deci­sion to trans­fer cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing author­i­ty from the jury to the judge at tri­al. The study used data from cap­i­tal cas­es between 1977 and 2007, dur­ing which time Delaware made the shift to judge sen­tenc­ing – one of very few states to employ that pro­ce­dure. According to the study, ​“Judges were sig­nif­i­cant­ly more like­ly to give a…

The lat­est edi­tion of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Death Row, USA showed a con­tin­u­ing decline in the size of the death row pop­u­la­tion. The new total of 3,035 rep­re­sent­ed a 13% drop from 10 years ear­li­er, when the death row pop­u­la­tion was 3,471. The racial demo­graph­ics of death row have been steady, with white inmates mak­ing up 43% of death row, black inmates com­pos­ing 42%, and Latino inmates 13%. California con­tin­ued to have the largest death row,…

In an op-ed in the New York Times, Sylvie Kauffmann, of the French mag­a­zine Le Monde, described the inter­ac­tion between Europe and the U.S. on the death penal­ty. She not­ed that Felix Rohatyn said the most con­tro­ver­sial sub­ject he faced as the American ambas­sador to France was the enor­mous oppo­si­tion to the U.S. death penal­ty. She also not­ed the broad European refusal to have their drugs used in lethal injec­tions. In a recent devel­op­ment, a German investmunt…

Texas has set an exe­cu­tion date of December 3, 2014 for Scott Panetti, a death row inmate with schiz­o­phre­nia and schizoaf­fec­tive dis­or­der. Panetti rep­re­sent­ed him­self at tri­al dressed in a cow­boy out­fit, and attempt­ed to sub­poe­na Jesus Christ and the pope, among many oth­ers. Inmates who are ruled insane are inel­i­gi­ble for exe­cu­tion, but Texas offi­cials argue Panetti can be put to death because he sees some con­nec­tion between his crime and his exe­cu­tion. In…

Carl Dausch, a for­mer death row inmate in Florida, has been added to DPIC’s list of exon­er­a­tions from death row, bring­ing the nation­al total to 147 and Florida’s total to 25, the most of any state in the coun­try. On June 12, 2014, the Florida Supreme Court direct­ed the acquit­tal of Dausch because there was insuf­fi­cient evi­dence of his guilt. The Court stated, ​“We do not take light­ly the result that will flow from our deci­sion today. We have…

Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning said exe­cu­tions in the state are unlike­ly to resume for at least anoth­er year because of the scarci­ty of lethal injection drugs. ​“Death row is sort of in lim­bo today,” he said, adding that efforts to find alter­na­tive drugs have been divert­ed due to oth­er state con­cerns. Nebraska’s last exe­cu­tion was in 1997, by elec­tro­cu­tion. The state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col calls for use of sodi­um thiopen­tal, which is no longer being man­u­fac­tured for the…

In a recent op-ed in the National Law Journal, his­to­ri­an John Bessler described the ambiva­lence among American founders toward the death penal­ty. He noted, ​“Although ear­ly U.S. laws autho­rized exe­cu­tions, the founders great­ly admired a now lit­­tle-known Italian writer, Cesare Beccaria, who fer­vent­ly opposed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. They also were fas­ci­nat­ed by the pen­i­ten­tiary sys­tem’s poten­tial to elim­i­nate cru­el pun­ish­ments.” Thomas Jefferson wrote,…