Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

On January 15 at a press con­fer­ence with lead­ers of the NAACP, Maryland’s Governor Martin O’Malley announced he will be mak­ing the repeal of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment a pri­or­i­ty in the upcom­ing leg­isla­tive ses­sion and will sub­mit a repeal bill to the leg­is­la­ture lat­er this week. Among the con­cerns about the death penal­ty expressed by the gov­er­nor were its high costs and the lack of any ben­e­fit to soci­ety:​“Is it worth wast­ing tax­pay­er dollars on…

A recent Gallup Poll mea­sured Americans’ abstract sup­port for the death penal­ty at 63%, the sec­ond-low­est lev­el of sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment since 1978, and a sig­nif­i­cant decline from 1994, when 80% of respon­dents were in favor of the death penal­ty. Gallup not­ed the results of the poll may have been affect­ed by the fact that it was con­duct­ed a few days after the shoot­ings in Newtown, Connecticut. In 2011 Gallup found 61% in sup­port of the death…

The Death Penalty Information Center is pleased to offer a new resource page on death sen­tences in 2012. Seventy-eight (78) peo­ple were sen­tenced to death in 2012, the sec­ond low­est num­ber of sen­tences since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976. Of those sen­tenced, 3 were women; 49% were black; 40% were white. Four states (FL, CA, TX, and PA) were respon­si­ble for 65% of the death sen­tences, and only 9 counties produced…

Jeffrey Havard (pic­tured) is fac­ing exe­cu­tion in Mississippi despite the fact that key evi­dence against him came from a med­ical exam­in­er who has been harsh­ly crit­i­cized by experts in his field. Havard was con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing his girlfriend’s 6‑month-old daugh­ter, based pri­mar­i­ly on the tes­ti­mo­ny of Steven Hayne, a state pathol­o­gist. Dr. Hayne tes­ti­fied he found symp­toms of​“shak­en baby syn­drome” and sex­u­al abuse on the…

On January 8, the U.S. Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly reject­ed indef­i­nite delays in the fed­er­al review of death penal­ty cas­es when inmates are men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent to assist their attor­neys. Writing for the Court, Justice Clarence Thomas said such appeals are usu­al­ly based on estab­lished facts, not requir­ing fur­ther input from the defen­dant.​“Given the back­­­ward-look­ing, record-based nature of most fed­er­al habeas pro­ceed­ings, coun­sel can generally…

In his recent Sidebar col­umn, Adam Liptak, Supreme Court reporter for the New York Times, dis­cussed the plight that Alabama death row inmate Ronald Smith suf­fered at the hands of a drug-addic­t­ed lawyer and an unsym­pa­thet­ic court. In December, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that Smith could not chal­lenge his con­vic­tion and sen­tence because his lawyer failed to prop­er­ly file his…

As leg­isla­tive ses­sions begin across the coun­try, leg­is­la­tors in sev­er­al states have pro­posed bills to abol­ish or reform the death penal­ty in 2013. In Alabama, Sen. Hank Sanders will intro­duce bills to abol­ish the death penal­ty, or alter­na­tive­ly to insti­tute a series of reforms.​“I believe the death penal­ty is not only unpro­duc­tive but counter-pro­­­duc­­­tive,” he said. Texas will also con­sid­er a num­ber of death penal­ty reform bills,…

DPIC​’s 2012 Year End Report received exten­sive media cov­er­age in the U.S. and inter­na­tion­al­ly. Coverage includ­ed pieces by the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, Reuters, New York Times, CNN, and hun­dreds of oth­er out­lets. National broad­cast out­lets such as NPR, MSNBC, and CBS Radio also ran pieces. Many papers…

Following the themes of DPIC​’s 2012 Year End Report, the lead edi­to­r­i­al for Jan. 2 in the New York Times con­clud­ed that​“cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is cru­el and unusu­al” as judged by the coun­try’s​“evolv­ing stan­dards” of decen­cy and​“should be abol­ished” by the Supreme Court. The Times​’s edi­to­r­i­al not­ed the few­er num­ber of states car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions, the lack of any mean­ing­ful ratio­nale, the…