Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

A news­pa­per’s inves­ti­ga­tion into the costs of the death penal­ty in Florida revealed the state is spend­ing as much as $1 mil­lion per inmate just for incar­cer­a­tion and appel­late costs. Trial costs would add sub­stan­tial­ly to the state’s total. Florida has over 400 inmates on death row. For exam­ple, keep­ing J.B. Parker under the spe­cial secu­ri­ty of death row for 29 years has cost tax­pay­ers $688,000; his appeals cost $296,000, for a total of $984,000. The total for Alfonso Cave…

According to a recent arti­cle in the Wall Street Journal, some long-time sup­port­ers of the death penal­ty have recent­ly shift­ed their posi­tions, ques­tion­ing whether the occa­sion­al exe­cu­tion is worth the costs incurred by tax­pay­ers at a time when bud­gets are strained. Gil Garcetti (pic­tured), the for­mer dis­trict attor­ney of Los Angeles County, which is respon­si­ble for rough­ly one-third of California​’s 727 death-row inmates, recently remarked, ​“I was a…

Anthony Haynes is seek­ing clemen­cy from the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. Haynes was only 19 when he killed an off-duty police offi­cer who stopped his car in Houston. He had no pri­or crim­i­nal record. His defense lawyers failed to present mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence that was avail­able at the time of his tri­al. More than three dozen peo­ple have signed state­ments say­ing they would have been will­ing to tes­ti­fy that Haynes’ crime was extreme­ly out of character and…

On October 2, Judge Gregory Weeks heard tes­ti­mo­ny regard­ing racial bias in jury selec­tion, as three North Carolina death row inmates chal­lenged their sen­tences under the state’s Racial Justice Act. Prof. Barbara O’Brien of Michigan State University pro­vid­ed sta­tis­ti­cal evi­dence of racial bias in the fre­quent rejec­tion of African-American poten­tial jurors from death penal­ty tri­als in the state. According to O’Brien’s study, qual­i­fied black jurors were twice as…

On October 9, the U.S. Supreme Court will con­sid­er cas­es from Arizona and Ohio ques­tion­ing whether death penal­ty appeals can con­tin­ue if the defen­dant is men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent. Under the Court’s pri­or rul­ings in Ford v. Wainwright (1986) and in Atkins v. Virginia (2002), cap­i­tal defen­dants can­not be exe­cut­ed if they are incom­pe­tent or intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled (men­tal­ly retard­ed). In the upcom­ing cas­es, Ryan v. Gonzalez and Tibbals…

The main sup­pli­er to the U.S. of a drug pro­posed for lethal injec­tions has announced it will not allow the drug to be sold for exe­cu­tions. Fresenius Kabi USA, a German-based com­pa­ny with offices in Illinois, issued a state­ment for­bid­ding the sale of propo­fol to cor­rec­tion­al insti­tu­tions for death penal­ty use. Earlier in 2012, Missouri announced it intend­ed to switch to propo­fol as the sole drug in its lethal injection protocol,…

On September 28, Damon Thibodeaux was freed from death row in Louisiana after an exten­sive inves­ti­ga­tion, includ­ing DNA test­ing and the coop­er­a­tion of Jefferson Parrish District Attorney Paul Connick. Thibodeaux was sen­tenced to death for the 1996 rape and mur­der of his cousin. He at first con­fessed to the attack after a nine-hour inter­ro­ga­tion by detec­tives. He recant­ed a few hours lat­er and claimed his con­fes­sion was coerced. In releasing Thibodeaux,…

On September 28, Philadelphia Judge M. Teresa Sarmina grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion and a new sen­tenc­ing hear­ing to Terrance Williams because the pros­e­cu­tors sup­pressed impor­tant mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence. The evi­dence, which could have been pre­sent­ed at tri­al, indi­cat­ed the pros­e­cu­tors knew that Amos Norwood, Williams’s vic­tim, had been a pedophile who sex­u­al­ly abused Williams. The judge’s deci­sion came a day after the Board of Pardons agreed to recon­sid­er Williams’s clemency plea.

On September 27, a fed­er­al jury in Puerto Rico reject­ed the death penal­ty for Edison Burgos Montes, who was con­vict­ed in August of the mur­der of his girl­friend in 2005. The jury delib­er­at­ed for two days before sen­tenc­ing Montes to life in prison for this drug-relat­ed crime. Puerto Rico’s con­sti­tu­tion for­bids cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, but U.S. pros­e­cu­tors can seek the death penal­ty under fed­er­al law. This is the fourth cap­i­tal case tried by U.S. author­i­ties since the federal death…