Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Leland Anderson served as a judge in Jefferson County, Colorado, sentencing one man to death while sparing another. In a recent op-ed in The Denver Post, Anderson wrote how those cases affected him: “Those cases continue to haunt me even to this day, many years after having signed off on the decisions with a trembling heart.” He said his views on the death penalty have changed since he was on the bench: “I have had much time to reflect on the experience of judging another person’s life or…

A new animated film, The Last 40 Miles, will follow a death row inmate on his final journey from the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas, to the death chamber in Huntsville. The film uses three forms of animation to tell the inmate’s story, from his tragic childhood to the moment he is being escorted to the lethal injection chamber. The script was written by freelance journalist Alex Hannaford and is based on interviews he conducted with death row inmates for news stories. Hannaford described…

A recent poll conducted by Public Policy Polling indicated a strong majority of North Carolina residents prefer replacing the death penalty with a sentence of life without parole (LWOP), as long as some conditions are imposed. According to the survey, 68% of respondents support replacing the death penalty with LWOP if the offender had to work and pay restitution to the victim’s family. Sixty-three percent (63%) support repealing the death penalty if the money saved was redirected to effective…

On March 6, the Maryland Senate passed SB 276 by a vote of 27 – 20. The bill replaces the death penalty with a sentence of life without parole for future offenses. The bill appears likely to pass the House of Delegates, and Governor Martin O’Malley has pledged to sign it. The bill would not affect the inmates currently on death row. If passed by the House and signed into law, Maryland would become the sixth state in six years, and the 18^th overall to abandon capital punishment. Maryland has five…

Missouri State Senator Gina Walsh recently voiced her support for Senate Bill 247, a bill to repeal the death penalty and replace it with life without parole. Sen. Walsh cited the lack of deterrence and unfairness as her primary concerns about capital punishment. “It doesn’t deter crime. It discriminates against racial minorities and poor people who can’t afford attorneys,” Walsh said. The bill was recently heard in the Judiciary and Civil and Criminal Jurisprudence Committee of the senate.

On March 3, Up with Chris Hayes on MSNBC discussed how economic concerns are shifting more attention to the high costs of capital punishment. Guest Bryan Stevenson (left), Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, described how the millions of dollars spent on the death penalty could be used elsewhere: “Maryland’s [death penalty repeal] bill actually will give money and resources to the families of people who’ve lost loved ones. California’s bill was actually directly aimed at helping…

DPIC is proud to present its latest podcast, featuring award-winning author John Bessler discussing the historical roots of the death penalty and the current problem of arbitrariness in its application. Bessler is a law professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and author of Cruel and Unusual: The American Death Penalty and the Founders’ Eighth Amendment. Prof. Bessler shares his expertise on the surprising resistance to capital punishment among some of the nation’s founders and…

On February 26, the House Judiciary Committee in Oregon held a hearing on repealing the death penalty. Among those testifying was Frank Thompson, a former superintendent of the Oregon State Penitentiary, who oversaw the state’s last two executions. Thompson told the committee the death penalty does not deter crime, fails to make the public safer, and places prison workers in an untenable position: “Asking decent men and women to participate in the name of a failed public policy that takes human…

The Texas Tribune recently published a six-part series examining the plight of mentally ill defendants in the Texas criminal justice system. The series focused particularly on death penalty cases, including that of Andre Thomas, a man with a long history of mental illness. He pulled his own eye out in 2004, and later explained that he did it because he kept seeing his wife, whom he killed along with his children just days before. Thomas is among thousands of mentally ill inmates in the Texas…

On February 25, the U.S Supreme Court agreed to review a decision by the Kansas Supreme Court overturning the conviction and death sentence of Scott Cheever, who killed a sheriff during a drug investigation. Cheever argued that his own drug use made it impossible for him to have killed with premeditation, a factor necessary for a capital murder conviction. The case had been previously charged in federal court. In that case, the trial judge had ordered a mental health evaluation because Cheever…