Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Justin Wolfers, an econ­o­mist and senior fel­low at the Brookings Institution, recent­ly under­scored the prob­lems iden­ti­fied in a sweep­ing rul­ing hold­ing California​’s death penalty unconstitutional. ​“Capital pun­ish­ment,” Wolfers said, ​“is not only rare, but it’s also an extra­or­di­nar­i­ly long and drawn-out process.” For many offenders, ​“death row may actu­al­ly be safer than life on the street.” He com­pared the rel­a­tive­ly few exe­cu­tions to the large…

In a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, eight retired judges recent­ly asked the Court to review the case of Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed. Reed is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in January 2015. While the judges, who served on fed­er­al and state courts in many juris­dic­tions around the coun­try, did not take a stance on Reed’s inno­cence claims, they urged the Court to hear his appeal so that new evi­dence in the case could be examined under…

On July 19 Prof. Charles Ogletree of Harvard University Law School wrote in the Washington Post about the future of the death penal­ty in the U.S. Noting that the U.S. Supreme Court recent­ly affirmed (Hall v. Florida) that exe­cut­ing defen­dants with intel­lec­tu­al disabilities serves ​“no legit­i­mate peno­log­i­cal pur­pose,” Prof. Ogletree said this rea­son­ing could be applied to the whole death penalty: ​“The over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of those fac­ing exe­cu­tion today have…

According to a report released on July 16 by the Inspector General’s Office of the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation failed to pro­vide time­ly notice to many cap­i­tal defen­dants that their cas­es were under review for pos­si­bly inac­cu­rate tes­ti­mo­ny by FBI experts. Some of these defen­dants were exe­cut­ed with­out being informed of the mis­lead­ing tes­ti­mo­ny pro­vid­ed by the gov­ern­ment. The report stat­ed: “[T]he FBI did not take sufficient steps…

In a sweep­ing rul­ing on July 16, U.S. District Court Judge Cormac Carney held that California​’s death penal­ty is so dys­func­tion­al as to amount to cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. Vacating the death sen­tence of Ernest Jones, who has been on death row for almost 20 years, Judge Carney said the pun­ish­ment can­not serve the pur­pos­es of deter­rence or ret­ri­bu­tion when it is admin­is­tered to a tiny select few, decades after their sentencing: ​“Inordinate and unpre­dictable delay has…

A recent law review arti­cle by Professors Carol and Jordan Steiker describes how the Supreme Court’s attempt to close­ly reg­u­late the death penal­ty has led instead to more unpre­dictabil­i­ty in its prac­tice, espe­cial­ly with exe­cu­tions. Writing in the Southern California Law Review, the Steikers, of Harvard Law School and the University of Texas Law School respec­tive­ly, note that, “[T]he shape of con­tem­po­rary death penal­ty prac­tice is in many respects less regular than…

UPDATE: Middleton was exe­cut­ed on July 16, after the U.S. Court of Appeals lift­ed his stay. On July 15, a fed­er­al judge in Missouri stayed the exe­cu­tion of John Middleton, less than 24 hours before it was to occur. The judge was con­cerned that Middleton might be men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent, and hence inel­i­gi­ble for execution: ​“Middleton has pro­vid­ed evi­dence that he has been diag­nosed with a vari­ety of men­­tal-health dis­or­ders and has received a…

A recent poll of 1,600 Russians found that only 52% sup­port the death penal­ty, a sharp decline from 2002, when 73% said they sup­port­ed it. Two years ago, 61% were in favor of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Russia cur­rent­ly has a mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty that was put in place in 1996 by President Yeltsin, short­ly before Russia signed a rel­e­vant pro­to­col of the European Convention on Human Rights. Russia’s high court has ruled that even death sen­tences can­not be handed down.

On July 9, just one day before he was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed, Tommy Lee Waldrip was grant­ed clemen­cy by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles. Waldrip will now serve a sen­tence of life with­out parole. Although the Board did not give a rea­son for its deci­sion, one of the issues raised in the case was the dis­pro­por­tion­al­i­ty of Waldrip’s sen­tence com­pared to that of his co-defen­­dants. Three men were involved in the mur­der that sent Waldrip to death row, but…

According to a recent op-ed about China in the New York Times, the world leader in exe­cu­tions is hav­ing sec­ond thoughts about the death penal­ty. Liu Renwen, a legal schol­ar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the annu­al num­ber of exe­cu­tions in China dropped by half from 2007 to 2011, as more offend­ers were given ​“sus­pend­ed death sen­tences,” which are gen­er­al­ly reduced to life sen­tences. According to a 2008 poll in three provinces, pub­lic sup­port for the…