Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

On April 14, the North Carolina Supreme Court will hear appeals in the cas­es of the four inmates whose death sen­tences were reduced to life with­out parole under the state’s Racial Justice Act. North Carolina passed the Act in 2009, allow­ing death row inmates to use sta­tis­ti­cal stud­ies to show that racial bias affect­ed their tri­als. The first four cas­es were heard in 2012. The evi­dence pre­sent­ed at hear­ings for defen­dants Marcus Robinson (l.), Tilmon Golphin,…

In 2011, the Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court appoint­ed a blue-rib­bon Commission to review the state’s death penal­ty and to make rec­om­men­da­tions for reform. On April 10, the Commission pre­pared to announce 56 rec­om­men­da­tions for chang­ing the death penal­ty,…

A recent study by researchers at Cornell Law School found that the gen­der of the mur­der vic­tim may influ­ence whether a defen­dant receives the death penal­ty. Using data from 1976 to 2007 in Delaware, the study found that in cas­es with female vic­tims, 47.1% result­ed in death sen­tences, while in those involv­ing male vic­tims, only 32.3% were sen­tenced to death. The researchers looked at a num­ber of fac­tors oth­er than the vic­tim’s gen­der that might have affect­ed sen­tenc­ing deci­sions, including the…

In Ford v. Wainwright (1986), the U.S. Supreme Court banned the exe­cu­tion of inmates who were insane. In a dis­sent­ing opin­ion, Justice Rehnquist and Chief Justice Burger warned that the majority decision ​“offers an invi­ta­tion to those who have noth­ing to lose…to advance entire­ly spu­ri­ous claims of insan­i­ty.” A new study has exam­ined cas­es since 1986 in which death row inmates filed claims of men­tal incom­pe­tence and found that the del­uge of spurious…

Defending a death penal­ty case costs about four times as much as defend­ing a case where the death penal­ty is not sought, accord­ing to a new study by the Kansas Judicial Council. Examining 34 poten­tial death-penal­­ty cas­es from 2004 – 2011, the study found that defense costs for death penal­ty tri­als aver­aged $395,762 per case, com­pared to $98,963 per case when the death penal­ty was not sought. Costs incurred by the tri­al court showed a sim­i­lar dis­par­i­ty: $72,530 for cases with…

Ken Rose has rep­re­sent­ed peo­ple con­demned to death in the south for 30 years and recent­ly described his expe­ri­ence with this ​“flawed sys­tem:” ​“The sys­tem reflects our bias­es and blind spots,” he said. ​“Just like us, it is sus­cep­ti­ble to error and prej­u­dice and, some­times, an indis­crim­i­nate desire for revenge. Like our coun­try, it favors the priv­i­leged and takes the heav­i­est toll on the poor and men­tal­ly ill.” As an exam­ple, Rose told the sto­ry of one of his clients, Leo…

Two recent reports released in Ohio show a decline in the use of the death penal­ty, with one of the reports rais­ing con­cerns about the fair­ness of the sys­tem. The num­ber of death-penal­­ty cas­es filed in Ohio in 2013 was the low­est num­ber in over 30 years. The num­ber of cap­i­tal indict­ments was down 28% from 2012 and 63% from 2011, accord­ing to a report from Ohioans to Stop Executions, ​“The Death Lottery: How Race and Geography Determine Who Goes to Ohio’s Death…

On March 27, a court in Japan sus­pend­ed the death sen­tence and ordered the release and retri­al of Iwao Hakamada, who had been impris­oned for 48 years, most­ly on death row. The 78-year-old man is the world’s longest-serv­ing death row inmate. Presiding judge Hiroaki Murayama said, ​“It is unbear­ably unjust to pro­long deten­tion of the defen­dant any fur­ther. The pos­si­bil­i­ty of his inno­cence has become clear to a respectable degree.” Hakamada was con­vict­ed of the…

In a case in which the state’s Attorney General had asked for an exe­cu­tion date of March 27, the Mississippi Supreme Court instead threw out Michelle Byrom​’s mur­der con­vic­tion and death sen­tence and ordered a new tri­al just four days lat­er. The case was plagued with numer­ous prob­lems, includ­ing inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion, crit­i­cal evi­dence not pre­sent­ed to the jury, con­fes­sions by anoth­er defen­dant, and the pros­e­cu­tion’s lack of con­fi­dence in its own story of…

Further analy­sis of a recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that sup­port for the death penal­ty was sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er among some racial and eth­nic minori­ties than for the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion. More Hispanics oppose the death penal­ty (50%) than sup­port it (40%), and the same is true of African Americans, with only about a third (36%) favor­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and a major­i­ty (55%) oppos­ing it. Democrats are about even­ly split, with 45% in favor and 47%…