Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

On December 26, U.S. District Court Judge Raymond Jackson ordered Virginia to uncon­di­tion­al­ly free death row inmate Justin Wolfe with­in 10 days and barred the state from using its key wit­ness in any retri­al of Wolfe. Wolfe was con­vict­ed of con­spir­a­cy in the mur­der of Daniel Petrole, a fel­low drug deal­er in north­ern Virginia. His con­vic­tion was based pri­mar­i­ly on the tes­ti­mo­ny of the actu­al shoot­er, Owen Barber, who claimed that Wolfe hired him to kill Petrole…

On December 21, Seth Penalver was acquit­ted of all charges and will be freed from Florida​’s death row, 13 years after being sen­tenced to death. He was orig­i­nal­ly charged with a triple mur­der and armed rob­bery that occurred in Broward County in 1994. His first tri­al end­ed with a dead­locked jury. At his sec­ond tri­al in 1999, he was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death. In 2006, the Florida Supreme Court (Penalver v. Florida, No. SC00-1602, Feb. 2, 2006)…

In a recent op-ed in the Houston Chronicle, for­mer Texas District Attorneys Grant Jones and Sam Millsap (pic­tured) encour­aged the state leg­is­la­ture to recon­sid­er the death penalty. ​“Both of us have been involved in the exe­cu­tion of men who may well have been inno­cent,” they said, men­tion­ing three cases that ​“raise seri­ous doubts about the wis­dom of con­tin­u­ing the death penal­ty.” Two of the cas­es, those of Carlos DeLuna and Ruben Cantu, involved possible eyewitness…

The Chief Justice of California​’s Supreme Court, Tani Cantil-Sakauye, said recent­ly that she does not expect exe­cu­tions in California to resume for at least three years because of prob­lems with the lethal injec­tion process. California has already not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in sev­en years. Justice Cantil-Sakauye said major struc­tur­al changes to the state’s death penal­ty are unlike­ly, and that a pro­pos­al by the for­mer Chief Justice to speed death penal­ty appeals is ​“dead.”…

A new report on the death penal­ty in Texas found that death sen­tences have declined by more than 75% since 2002, and more than half of all new death sen­tences were imposed in the Dallas-Fort Worth area this year, while no new death sen­tences were imposed in Harris County (Houston) for the third time in five years. The report, ​“Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2012: The Year in Review” by the Texas Coalition to Abolish Death Penalty, stated there…

On December 18, the Death Penalty Information Center released its latest report, ​“The Death Penalty in 2012: Year End Report,” on devel­op­ments in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the past year. The report not­ed the num­ber of new death sen­tences in 2012 was the sec­ond low­est since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976, rep­re­sent­ing a near­ly 75% decline since 1996, when there were 315 new death sen­tences. Only nine states car­ried out exe­cu­tions in 2012,…

In a recent op-ed in Colorado​’s Daily Camera, Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett expressed his con­cerns about the death penal­ty, as the state pre­pares to con­sid­er its repeal. Garnett said, “[T]he prac­ti­cal prob­lems with the death penal­ty make it of lim­it­ed rel­e­vance to Colorado law enforce­ment.” He point­ed to the high costs of cap­i­tal cas­es, the time required to pros­e­cute, and the ran­dom­ness of its appli­ca­tion as major concerns: ​“Prosecuting a death…

UPDATE: (Dec. 17). Gov. Kasich grant­ed clemen­cy to Ronald Post, fol­low­ing the Parole Board’s rec­om­men­da­tion. On December 14, the Ohio Parole Board (5 – 3) rec­om­mend­ed clemen­cy for death row inmate Ronald Post, say­ing his legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion was inef­fec­tive and did not meet expec­ta­tions for a death penal­ty case. Post is cur­rent­ly sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on January 16, 2013. The Board’s rec­om­men­da­tion con­clud­ed: “[A] major­i­ty of the members of…

On December 13, North Carolina Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks reduced the sen­tences of three death row inmates to life with­out parole after find­ing that race played a sig­nif­i­cant role in the selec­tion of the juries in their…

West of Memphis is a fea­­ture-length doc­u­men­tary by Academy-Award win­ner Peter Jackson, offer­ing a pen­e­trat­ing look into the mur­der con­vic­tions and even­tu­al free­ing of the West Memphis Three. Jackson has called it his ​“most impor­tant film.” Three teenagers, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley, were con­vict­ed of killing three young boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, in 1993. Echols was sen­tenced to death…