Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Radley Balko, writing in the Huffington Post, has examined more closely some of the counties identified in DPIC’s recent report, The 2% Death Penalty, as using the death penalty the most. Balko found that many of those high-use counties have a pattern of prosecutorial misconduct and other problems. For example, Philadelphia County has sent more inmates to death row than any other county in Pennsylvania. However, a study of criminal cases overturned in the state because of prosecutorial…

Julia Bates has been the lead prosecutor in Lucas County, Ohio, since 1997. Although committed to following the law, she also believes it is time to repeal capital punishment in the state. She said death penalty cases are “torturous” for those involved, including judges, jurors, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and victims’ families, who are subjected to years of appeals. “It just seems there ought to be a better way,” Mrs. Bates said. Capital cases have sharply declined in Lucas County and in…

On November 21, the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously voted to posthumously pardon Charles Weems, Andy Wright, and Haywood Patterson, three of the nine “Scottsboro Boys,” a group of black teenagers who were charged in 1931 of raping two white women. Eight of the nine defendants, including the three who were recently pardoned, were originally sentenced to death. The racial injustice of the case sparked protests and two U.S. Supreme Court decisions, one because the defendants did…

Jeff Gerritt is the Deputy Editor of the Toledo Blade, a paper which has supported Ohio’s death penalty for years. Disagreeing with the paper’s Editor, Gerritt called for repeal of the death penalty in the state, noting the risk of executing the innocent, “Wrongly convicting anyone constitutes a horrible injustice, but executing the wrong person eliminates any chance of reversing the error. Nationwide, more than 140 people awaiting execution have been exonerated. Mistakes are far more likely in…

In a 6 – 3 decision on November 20, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied a request from death row inmate Duane Buck for a new sentencing hearing, despite the fact that racially prejudicial statements had been made during his trial. While the jury was being asked to consider if Buck would be a future danger to society, a psychologist testified that African Americans commit a disproportionate number of criminal offenses. Buck’s case was one of seven identified in 2000 by then-Texas Attorney…

Legal challenges to new lethal injection procedures have delayed executions in Florida and Missouri this week. Similar challenges halted executions in Georgia in July. On November 18, the Florida Supreme Court ordered a hearing on the state’s new execution protocol and stayed the execution of Askari Muhammad, who had been scheduled for execution on December 3. The hearing will examine “the efficacy of midazolam hydrochloride as an anesthetic in the amount prescribed by Florida’s protocol.”

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from Alabama death row inmate Mario Woodward, who was sentenced to death in 2008 despite a jury’s 8 – 4 recommendation for a life sentence. Alabama is one of only three states that allow a judge to override a jury’s sentencing recommendation for life to impose a death sentence; Florida and Delaware also allow the practice, but death sentences by judicial override are very rare in those states. Justice Sonia Sotomayor voted to hear the case, saying…

After concerns were raised that Missouri’s proposed use of the anesthetic propofol in executions could endanger the supply of that drug for use in surgeries, Governor Jay Nixon ordered the Department of Corrections to revise the state’s lethal injection protocol. Experts say that the new protocol, which hides the source of the pentobarbital that will now be used in executions, could result in substandard drugs being used to execute prisoners. The state plans to use a compounding pharmacy to…

Robert Blecker, a professor at New York Law School, has written a new book supporting capital punishment, The Death of Punishment: Searching for Justice among the Worst of the Worst. Blecker urges readers to consider his retributivist argument for the death penalty: “We retributivists view punishment differently,” he wrote. “We don’t punish to prevent crime or remake criminals. We inflict pain — suffering, discomfort — to the degree they deserve to feel it.” He would impose the death penalty not…

On November 13 Ohio Governor John Kasich stayed the execution of Ronald Phillips less than 24 hours before he was to be die by lethal injection in order to consider Phillips’ request to donate a kidney to his mother. Kasich stated, “I realize this is a bit of uncharted territory for Ohio, but if another life can be saved by his willingness to donate his organs and tissues then we should allow for that to happen.” Medical experts will now have time to determine whether Phillips would be a…