Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

The United Kingdom has introduced restictions on the exportation of propofol after officials in Missouri announced they would begin using the anesthetic in executions. Exports of sodium thiopental, another anesthetic previously used in executions, were restricted after several states obtained that drug from DreamPharma, a drug company run out of the back of a driving school in London. Vince Cable, the U.K. Business Secretary, said, “This country opposes the death penalty. We are clear that the…

On July 10, Ohio Governor John Kasich (pictured) granted clemency to death row inmate John Eley, who was scheduled to be executed on July 26. Eley’s sentence was reduced to life in prison without parole. The governor said he based his decision on evidence that Eley acted under the direction of another person, and that his mental capacity was limited, saying, “Without those factors it is doubtful that Eley would have committed this crime.” The prosecutor in the case and one of the judges who…

A recent New York Times editorial encouraged the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to reduce the sentence of death row inmate Warren Hill to life. Hill is facing execution on July 18. The editorial noted that Mr. Hill’s intellectual disabilities, including an IQ of 70, led the trial judge to find him mentally retarded. Georgia’s Supreme Court, however, overturned the judge’s ruling because mental retardation had not been proven “beyond a reasonable doubt.” The Times noted that Georgia “is…

A recent article in the Michigan State Law Review examined the problem of racial bias in capital cases, particularly with respect to jurors’ decision making. Authors Mona Lynch and Craig Haney (pictured), both professors at the University of California, summarize past statistical studies on race and the death penalty and present new experimental research on juror decision-making in a simulated capital trial. Research participants were shown one of four simulated trial videotapes. The videos…

Warren Hill (pictured) is scheduled to be executed on July 18 in Georgia despite being previously found intellectually disabled. The U.S. Supreme Court in Atkins v. Virgnia (2002) banned the execution of individuals with intellectual disabilities (mental retardation), but allowed each state to set guidelines for determining whether an inmate has such a condition. In Georgia, capital defendants are required to prove “mental retardation” beyond a reasonable doubt. It is the only state in the…

On July 3, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on UN Member States that use the death penalty to abolish the practice, stressing that the right to life lies at the heart of international human rights law. During a panel organized by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr. Ban said, “The taking of life is too absolute, too irreversible, for one human being to inflict on another, even when backed by legal process… Where the death penalty persists, conditions…

In the first half of 2012, eight states carried out 23 executions. In the same period last year, there were 25 executions in 9 states. The annual number of executions has declined significantly from its peak in 1999, when 98 people were executed. There were 43 executions in 2011. Sixteen of this year’s executions (70%) have been in the South, with nearly half in just two states — Texas and Mississippi. Seventy-eight percent (78%) of cases resulting in executions this year involved a murder with…

In June, the National Institute of Justice released the results of a study to determine how often modern DNA testing of evidence from older cases confirms the original conviction. The study, conducted by the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C, tested DNA evidence that had been retained in homicide and sexual assault convictions that occurred between 1973 and 1987 in Virginia. Among the homicides, there were not enough cases in which DNA would be determinative of guilt to make statistically…

On June 28, North Carolina’s Governor, Beverly Perdue, vetoed legislation that would have essentially repealed the state’s Racial Justice Act (RJA), a law allowing death row inmates to challenge their death sentence based on statewide patterns of racial bias. The law Gov. Perdue vetoed would have removed the possibility of showing bias based on these sophisticated studies. The governor said, “As long as I am governor, I will fight to make sure the death penalty stays on the books in North…

John J. Donohue (pictured), a research associate for the National Bureau of Economic Research and a professor at Stanford Law School, recently highlighted continuing problems with the death penalty system, forty years after it was struck down for being applied in an arbitrary manner. Professor Donohue wrote that despite “new and improved” statutes accepted by the Court when it reinstated the death penalty in 1976, “four decades later, there is plenty of evidence that the death penalty continues…