Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

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…

The lat­est edi­tion of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund​’s Death Row USA showed a decrease of 43 inmates under sen­tence of death from January 1 to October 1, 2012. Over the last decade, the total pop­u­la­tion of state and fed­er­al death rows has decreased sig­nif­i­cant­ly, from 3,703 inmates in 2000 to 3,146 inmates as of October 2012. California con­tin­ues to have the largest death row pop­u­la­tion (724), fol­lowed by Florida (411), Texas (304),…

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…

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,…