Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Joseph Ard, who spent 11 years on South Carolina​’s death row and a total of 19 years in con­fine­ment, was freed from prison on July 31. Ard was sen­tenced to death for the 1993 shoot­ing of his preg­nant girl­friend. After his con­vic­tion, new lawyers unearthed evi­dence that cor­rob­o­rat­ed Ard’s claim that the shoot­ing was acci­den­tal, result­ing from a strug­gle with his girl­friend over a gun. Ard was grant­ed a re-tri­al in 2007, and his lawyers presented…

Ronald Smith (pic­tured) is one of two Canadian cit­i­zens on death row in the United States. Smith is fac­ing exe­cu­tion in Montana for the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of two mem­bers of the Blackfeet Nation thir­ty years ago. Smith’s co-defen­­­dant, Rodney Munro, plead­ed guilty to aggra­vat­ed kid­nap­ping and was returned to Canada and released from jail in 1998. Munro cred­its Smith for sav­ing his life, say­ing that he was giv­en a plea deal and released…

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s ban on the death penal­ty for defen­dants with men­tal retar­da­tion, Texas is plan­ning to exe­cute Marvin Wilson on August 7. Wilson has an IQ of 61 and adap­tive func­tion­ing lev­els even low­er; the only board-cer­ti­­­fied expert to eval­u­ate Mr. Wilson con­clud­ed he has men­tal retar­da­tion (now known as intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty). Wilson strug­gled in school, and dropped out after the 10^th grade. According to…

In a recent op-ed, Tracie Olson, the Yolo County Public Defender, explained why California’s death penal­ty could be replaced with more cost-effi­­­cient and less risky alter­na­tives. Olson list­ed the death penalty’s high costs and risks of wrong­ful exe­cu­tions as rea­sons why alter­na­tives to the death penal­ty would be more ben­e­fi­cial to the state’s cit­i­zens. Olson cit­ed a 2011 study that found the death penal­ty has cost the state over $4 bil­lion since 1978, and…

New infor­ma­tion on for­eign nation­als fac­ing the death penal­ty in the U.S. is now avail­able on DPIC​’s Foreign Nationals page. This page pro­vides back­ground infor­ma­tion on cit­i­zens from oth­er coun­tries who have been sen­tenced to death in var­i­ous states and under the fed­er­al sys­tem. The list includes infor­ma­tion on whether these defen­dants were informed of their con­sular rights under the Vienna Convention, which the U.S. has rat­i­fied and depends upon…

On July 24, a Texas coun­ty judge declined to order a psy­chi­atric eval­u­a­tion to deter­mine whether Marcus Druery is com­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed on August 1. Earlier this month, Druery’s attor­neys request­ed a full inves­ti­ga­tion of his men­tal sta­tus, argu­ing he hears voic­es, believes he is being poi­soned with feces-spiked food, and lacks the under­stand­ing of his legal sit­u­a­tion required under the con­sti­tu­tion for exe­cu­tion. Reports by…

A new elec­tron­ic book by for­mer jour­nal­ist Peter Rooney offers an in-depth look at the case of Joseph Burrows, who was exon­er­at­ed from Illinois’s death row in 1996. In Die Free: A True Story of Murder, Betrayal and Miscarried Justice, Rooney explains how Burrows was sen­tenced to death for the mur­der of William Dulin based on snitch tes­ti­mo­ny. He was con­vict­ed pri­mar­i­ly on the word of Gayle Potter, who recanted her…

Bryan Stevenson, Executive Director of Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama, recent­ly deliv­ered the keynote address at the 30^th anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tion of the Open Door Community in Atlanta. Mr. Stevenson dis­cussed how defend­ing those on death row often takes a per­son­al toll on those engaged in this work, even to the point of feel­ing​“bro­ken.” But, he added,​“I’ve learned some very basic things, being a bro­ken per­son. I’ve learned that each…

One of the prin­ci­pal caus­es of wrong­ful con­vic­tions in death penal­ty cas­es and oth­er felonies is mis­tak­en eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny. On July 19, the New Jersey Supreme Court issued instruc­tions designed to help jurors bet­ter eval­u­ate the reli­a­bil­i­ty of eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tions. A judge is now required to tell jurors before delib­er­a­tions begin that stress lev­els, dis­tance, or poor light­ing can affect an eyewitness’s abil­i­ty to make an…

A recent law review arti­cle by Professors Carol and Jordan Steiker exam­ines two decades of attempts to reg­u­late cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and con­cludes that this process may have paved the way to a find­ing that the death penal­ty is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al: “[T]he mod­ern American death penal­ty — with its unprece­dent­ed costs, alter­na­tives, and legal reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work — seems new­ly vul­ner­a­ble to judi­cial inval­i­da­tion. Reform of the death penal­ty and its abolition might…