Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Capital Punishment: Race, Poverty, & Disadvantage is a free on-line course offered by Yale Law School. The course is taught by Stephen B. Bright, President of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Georgia. According to Yale’s description, “This course explores the imposition of the death penalty in the United States with particular attention to the influence of race and poverty, and the disadvantages of mental illness or intellectual disability of those facing death.” Each of the 13 course…

The Patriot-News in Pennsylvania is running a series of articles examining the state’s death penalty in anticipation of a comprehensive report on the death penalty commissioned by the state legislature. Pennsylvania has not carried out an execution since 1999, and all three of its executions in the modern era were inmates who waived their appeals. Incoming Governor Tom Wolf has said he may hold off on allowing executions until the state addresses questions of fairness in the application of the…

UPDATE: Brannan was denied clemency by Georgia on Jan.12. Andrew Brannan, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, is scheduled to be executed in Georgia on January 13. His execution would be the first of 2015. Brannan’s attorneys are asking the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant clemency because Brannan suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder. A police video from the crime scene illustrated Brannan’s erratic behavior. Joe Loveland, one of Brannan’s attorneys…

DPIC’s 2014 Year End Report was featured in numerous editorials since its release on December 18, including: “Thirty-five people were put to death in 2014, the fewest in 20 years, according to a report last month by the Death Penalty Information Center….[W]hile the death penalty may be increasingly infrequent, it is all too often a brutal end to a brutal life….The people executed in recent years were not the ‘worst of the worst’ — as many death-penalty advocates like to imagine — but those who…

In a recent op-ed in the Louisville Courier-Journal, three former Kentucky prosecutors advocated for repeal of the death penalty. Citing the findings of a study by the American Bar Association on Kentucky’s law, Joseph P. Gutmann (pictured), Stephen Ryan, and J. Stewart Schneider said, “[T]he death penalty is broken beyond repair in Kentucky.” Among the report’s findings were a reversal rate of 60% in death penalty cases, a lack of standards for eyewitness identification and interrogations, and…

On December 31, 2014, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley announced he will commute the sentences of the four men remaining on the state’s death row to life without parole. O’Malley signed Maryland’s death penalty repeal bill into law in 2013, but the repeal was not retroactive. In a statement, O’Malley said, “Recent appeals and the latest opinion on this matter by Maryland’s Attorney General have called into question the legality of carrying out earlier death sentences — sentences imposed prior…

On December 19, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released its annual statistical report on capital punishment in the United States, with information for 2013. It noted a continuing decline in the death row population and the number of executions. Highlights of the report include: The death row population dropped to 2,979 inmates as of 12/31/13, with 60% held in just 5 states (California, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Alabama). 2013 was the 13^th consecutive year in which the population of…

On December 18, the United Nations voted to adopt a resolution calling for a global moratorium on the death penalty, with an eye toward abolition. A record high 117 countries voted in favor of the resolution. The United States was one of just 38 nations that opposed it, and 34 nations abstained. Two years ago, a similar resolution passed with 111 “yes” votes. This year’s resolution also urged those countries that still carry out executions not to execute juveniles, pregnant women, or people…

The parents of James Holmes recently explained that their son is severely mentally ill and asked he be spared the death penalty. Holmes is accused of killing numerous people at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Robert and Arlene Holmes said they were aware of the great harm their son caused, noting, “We are always praying for everyone in Aurora. We wish that July 20, 2012, never happened.” They also recognized the sentiments among some that their son be executed: “We have read postings on…

On December 16, 2014, a South Carolina judge vacated the conviction of George Stinney, Jr., the youngest person executed in the U.S. in the last century. Judge Carmen Mullen wrote: “I can think of no greater injustice than the violation of one’s Constitutional rights which has been proven to me in this case.” Stinney, a black, 14-year-old boy, was convicted by an all-white jury of killing two young white girls. Police said Stinney confessed to the crime, but no confession was ever produced.