Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

In an op-ed writ­ten for the 25^th anniver­sary of the U.S. Supreme Court​’s deci­sion in McCleskey v. Kemp, nation­al­ly acclaimed death penal­ty expert James Acker (pic­tured) called for a reassess­ment of how race is affect­ing death penal­ty deci­sions. Prof. Acker ques­tioned the Court’s refusal to find bias in the wake of the strong sta­tis­ti­cal evi­dence pre­sent­ed in that case. He wrote, ​“The time has sure­ly come for a sober reassessment of…

On April 25, 2012, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy (pic­tured) signed into law a bill that replaces the death penal­ty with life with­out parole. At that time, Connecticut became the fifth state in five years, and the 17^th over­all, to do away with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Governor Malloy, who once sup­port­ed the death penal­ty, offered the following statement: ​“My posi­tion on the appro­pri­ate­ness of the death penal­ty in our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem evolved over a long peri­od of time.

On April 20, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles reduced the death sen­tence of Daniel Greene (pic­tured) to life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. The Board had stayed Greene’s exe­cu­tion, which was set for April 19, in order to fur­ther con­sid­er his clemen­cy peti­tion. Greene’s peti­tion includ­ed let­ters from sev­er­al mem­bers of the Taylor County com­mu­ni­ty, where the mur­der occurred, urg­ing the Board to spare Greene’s life. Among the letters was…

On April 23, the SAFE California Act, an ini­tia­tive to replace California​’s death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life with­out parole, qual­i­fied for the November 2012 bal­lot by pre­sent­ing an ample num­ber of qual­i­fied sig­na­tures. The ini­tia­tive gar­nered almost 800,000 sig­na­tures for the mea­sure that would repeal the death penal­ty and make cap­i­tal crimes pun­ish­able by life in prison with­out parole. The ini­tia­tive would also require inmates to work in prison to help…

On April 20, North Carolina Superior Court Judge Gregory Weeks issued an his­toric rul­ing under the state’s Racial Justice Act find­ing inten­tion­al bias by the state in select­ing juries for death penal­ty cas­es. In what may be the first rul­ing of its kind in the coun­try, the court held that ​“race was a mate­ri­al­ly, prac­ti­cal­ly and sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor in the deci­sion to exer­cise peremp­to­ry chal­lenges dur­ing jury selec­tion by pros­e­cu­tors” at the time…

In a recent op-ed in the Gainesville Sun, Florida Judge Charles M. Harris (pic­tured) called the state’s cap­i­tal punishment system ​“total­ly defec­tive” and ​“far less sat­is­fac­to­ry” than alter­na­tives like life with­out parole. Judge Harris, who has been on the bench for over 20 years, argued that life without parole ​“has ren­dered death by exe­cu­tion redun­dant and the amount we spend on it wast­ed.” He con­tin­ued, “[D]eath by exe­cu­tion is exces­sive­ly expen­sive. Most people…

A report released on April 18 by the pres­ti­gious National Research Council of the National Academies based on a review of more than three decades of research con­clud­ed that stud­ies claim­ing a deter­rent effect on mur­der rates from the death penal­ty are fun­da­men­tal­ly flawed. The report concluded: ​“The com­mit­tee con­cludes that research to date on the effect of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment on homi­cide is not infor­ma­tive about whether cap­i­tal punishment decreases,…

April 22 will mark the 25^th anniver­sary of the Supreme Court​’s deci­sion in McCleskey v. Kemp in which the Court reject­ed (5 – 4) a claim of racial bias based on a sophis­ti­cat­ed sta­tis­ti­cal study of the death penal­ty in Georgia. Warren McCleskey, an African-American death row inmate con­vict­ed of killing a white police offi­cer, pre­sent­ed the Court with analy­sis show­ing that defen­dants charged with killing white vic­tims had odds of…

A recent study of the death penal­ty in Nevada com­pared the costs of defend­ing cap­i­tal and non-cap­i­­tal mur­der cas­es. The study, con­duct­ed by Dr. Terance Miethe of the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, looked at the time spent by defense attor­neys at var­i­ous stages of a case. The study’s find­ings includ­ed: — Clark County pub­lic defense attor­neys spent an aver­age of 2,298 hours on a cap­i­tal mur­der case com­pared to an aver­age of 1,087 hours…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the New York Times called Connecticut​’s deci­sion to repeal the death penal­ty part of ​“a grow­ing move­ment against cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” The edi­to­r­i­al attrib­uted the trend away from the death penal­ty to new research that shows ​“gross injus­tice in its appli­ca­tion and enor­mous costs in con­tin­u­ing to impose it.” The prob­lem of arbi­trari­ness recent­ly came to light in Connecticut, where ​“a pow­er­ful, com­pre­hen­sive study pro­vid­ed evidence that…