Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

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 those sending letters supporting clemency were former Colorado Supreme…

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 sentences. For example, one map shows that less than…

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 being requested. Earlier, the same Court had overturned Manning’s conviction because his lawyers were not…

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 establishing an official moratorium on executions…

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 (727), followed by Florida (413), Texas (300), and…

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 been executed if the legislation that’s heading to the…

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 disabled, and therefore ineligible for the…

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 others, whose crimes are arguably worse in degree or savagery, do not.” He also…

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, “People should not be using inmates as an experiment. And that is…

On April 22, a divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit denied Warren Hill’s appeal to halt his execution based on new evidence of his intellectual disability. The Court ruled that Hill’s claim of intellectual disability (mental retardation) was presented in an earlier petition and cannot be presented again, despite the new evidence. The judges also held that, even if Hill’s claim is a new one, it only challenges his eligibility for the death penalty, not his underlying guilt, and…