Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

In a 5 – 2 decision, the Florida Supreme Court overturned the murder and sexual battery convictions and death sentence of Roy Swafford (pictured), who has been on death row since 1988. The court said in its decision that “No witness, DNA, or fingerprints link Swafford to the victim or the murder weapon. The newly discovered forensic evidence regarding the alleged sexual battery changes the very character of the case and affects the admissibility of evidence that was heard by the jury.” Retesting…

Medical experts are concerned that untried lethal injection procedures in some states could cause prolonged, painful deaths. Ohio will try a procedure never used before in an execution on November 14 when it plans to inject a combination of the sedative midazolam and the painkiller hydromorphone. According to Dr. Jonathan Groner, a professor of clinical surgery at Ohio State University College of Medicine, a hydromorphone overdose can cause painful side effects, including an extreme burning…

On November 6 the New Hampshire Supreme Court issued a lengthy ruling upholding the conviction and death sentence of Michael Addison, the state’s only death row inmate. The case is the first death-penalty appeal to be decided by the Court in decades. The opinion said additional briefing and oral argument will be required before deciding “whether the sentence of death is excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases, considering both the crime and the defendant.”

A federal court in Florida will review challenges to the state’s new lethal injection procedure, which the state plans to use in an upcoming execution on November 12. Florida is the only state in the country to use this new protocol, which begins with the sedative midazolam, followed by a paralytic drug and potassium chloride. Attorneys for Florida death row inmates allege the process could result in severe pain in violation of the 8^th Amendment. Megan McCracken, an attorney at the death…

Chase Blasi is on the Board of the Kansas Young Republicans and president of the Colwich City Council. In a recent op-ed in the Witchita Eagle, Blasi challenged the idea that “if you are conservative you must favor the death penalty.” Instead he noted, “repeal of the death penalty is an important step for promoting a culture of life. The death penalty is simply not necessary to protect life, given that there are alternatives such as life in prison without parole available to keep society…

The Center for Constitutional Rights and the International Federation for Human Rights recently released an analysis of the death penalty in California and Louisiana. The report concluded that those states’ application of capital punishment “violates U.S. obligations under international human rights law to prevent and prohibit discrimination and torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.” Researchers conducted interviews with many of those involved in the legal system and examined data on…

A recent Gallup poll found the lowest level of support for the death penalty in America since 1972. Gallup’s October poll measured Americans’ abstract support at 60%, a 20-percentage point decline from 1994, when 80% of respondents were in favor of the death penalty for those convicted of murder. Support for the death penalty differed sharply among those who identified themselves with a political party: 81% of Republicans supported the death penalty, while only 47% of Democrats and 60% of…

Reginald Griffin, a former death row inmate from Missouri, became the 143^rd person in the U.S. to be exonerated and freed from death row since 1973, after the state dismissed all charges related to his death sentence on October 25. Griffin had been sentenced to death for the murder of a fellow inmate in 1983. His conviction was overturned in 2011 by the Missouri Supreme Court (Griffin v. Denney) because the state had withheld critical evidence. Griffin’s conviction relied on the testimony of…

In a four-part series on the conduct of prosecutors in capital cases, The Arizona Republic examined allegations by appellate attorneys that prosecutorial misconduct occurred in nearly half of the state’s capital cases since 2002. The study found that nearly half of the allegations were validated by the Arizona Supreme Court, though only two death sentences were vacated. The paper found there were seldom consequences to prosecutors for misconduct. Of all the allegations, only two resulted in…

The U.S. Department of Justice recently released its annual FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2012. The national murder rate remained approximately the same in 2012 as in 2011. The Northeast, the region with the fewest executions, had the lowest murder rate of any region, and its murder rate decreased 3.4% from the previous year. The South, which carries out the most executions of any region, again had the highest murder rate in 2012. The murder rate in the West remained about the same, while the…