Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Nancy Mullane, a reporter for KALW Radio in San Francisco, is one of the few reporters to vis­it California​’s death row at San Quentin Prison. In the block she vis­it­ed, there were 500 inmates, in 4‑by-10 foot cells, stacked five tiers high. The cells are about the size of a walk-in clos­et. Many of the inmates have been on death row for over 20 years. Inmates can show­er every oth­er day. One of the inmates she met with, Justin Helzer, had stabbed him­self in both eyes. He…

On May 6, more than 20 for­mer judges and pros­e­cu­tors, reli­gious lead­ers, men­tal health experts, and many oth­ers called on Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper (pic­tured) to com­mute Nathan Dunlap’s death sen­tence to life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. The group’s state­ment cit­ed racial and geo­graph­ic dis­par­i­ties in the state’s appli­ca­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as rea­sons why Dunlap should not be exe­cut­ed. Among…

The Death Penalty Information Center is pleased to offer a new set of data illus­trat­ing the geo­graph­ic arbi­trari­ness of the death penal­ty. The new sec­tion, The Clustering of the Death Penalty, demon­strates that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is actu­al­ly car­ried out in only a small per­cent­age of U.S. juris­dic­tions. DPIC ana­lyzed the coun­ties with­in states that are respon­si­ble for the most exe­cu­tions, the most death row inmates, and the most recent death…

UPDATE: Execution stayed by Mississippi Supreme Court. Since 1994, Willie Manning, an inmate on Mississippi​’s death row, has been request­ing DNA test­ing of crit­i­cal evi­dence recov­ered from the crime scene of the mur­ders that led to his con­vic­tion. Manning’s con­vic­tion was based main­ly on cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence. In April the Mississippi Supreme Court nar­row­ly (5 – 4) denied the DNA testing…

In April, the International Commission Against the Death Penalty (ICDP) released a new report titled, How States Abolish the Death Penalty. The report exam­ines the expe­ri­ences of 13 coun­tries, includ­ing Argentina, France, Haiti, the Philippines, South Africa, and 2 states in the U.S. (Connecticut and New Mexico), in their paths to end­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The report not­ed that some states took inter­me­di­ary steps to abo­li­tion, including…

The lat­est edi­tion of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Death Row USA showed a con­tin­u­ing decline in the num­ber of peo­ple on death rows across the coun­try. As of January 1, 2013, there were 3,125 inmates under a sen­tence of death, a decrease of 43 from a year ago. Over the last decade, the size of death row has dropped almost 16%, from 3,703 inmates in 2000 to 3,125 in 2013. California con­tin­ued to have the largest death row population…

An edi­to­r­i­al in the Miami Herald called on Florida Governor Rick Scott (pic­tured) to veto a bill recent­ly passed by the leg­is­la­ture requir­ing the gov­er­nor to sign a death war­rant with­in 30 days after state Supreme Court review, with the exe­cu­tion tak­ing place with­in 180 days after that. The edi­to­r­i­al list­ed sev­er­al death row inmates who were exon­er­at­ed after spend­ing more than 10 years on death row, and not­ed,​“All of them might have…

Texas death row inmate Jose Garcia Briseño, whose case was used by the Texas courts to estab­lish a very restric­tive def­i­n­i­tion of men­tal retar­da­tion, has been resen­tenced to life with­out parole. His sen­tence was the result of a plea bar­gain end­ing years of lit­i­ga­tion. Briseño has been on death row for over 20 years, and received a stay of exe­cu­tion in 2009 just 5 days before he was to be exe­cut­ed. Briseño’s lawyers have argued he is intellectually…

As a Superior Court judge in Delaware, Norman Barron was referred to as​“the hang­ing judge” because of his will­ing­ness to impose death sen­tences. In a recent op-ed for Delaware Online, the now-retired judge expressed how his views on the death penal­ty have changed:​“I believe the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty is quirky and capri­cious… it is impos­si­ble to jus­ti­fy why some mur­der­ers receive the death penalty while…

The Arkansas Department of Corrections recent­ly announced it will use a new drug, phe­no­bar­bi­tal, for lethal injec­tions. Phenobarbital is used to treat seizures but has nev­er been used for exe­cu­tions in the U.S. Some experts are con­cerned that using drugs that are untest­ed for this pur­pose could result in inhu­mane treat­ment. David Lubarsky, who chairs the anes­the­si­ol­o­gy depart­ment at the University of Miami’s med­ical school, said,…