Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

On April 11, the Connecticut House of Representatives passed (86 – 62) a bill to abol­ish the death penal­ty for future crimes. The same bill passed the Connecticut Senate on April 5. Governor Dannel Malloy has pledged to sign the bill, which will make Connecticut the 17^th state to abol­ish the death penal­ty, and the 5^th to do so in the last 5 years. In a state­ment released after the House vote, Gov. Malloy said, ​“When I sign this bill, Connecticut will join 16 oth­er states and…

Following the recent hand­ing down of a death sen­tence in Philadelphia, the Executive Director of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation blamed the out­come on an inad­e­quate indi­­gent-defense sys­tem. Marc Bookman (pic­tured), writ­ing in the Philadelphia Inquirer, reviewed the case and found, ​“There isn’t a sin­gle motion filed by the attor­neys in defense of their client. Nor is there a request for a jury ques­tion­naire, which is…

Oklahoma inmate Garry Allen (pic­tured) is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on April 12, despite a Pardon and Parole Board’s 4 – 1 rec­om­men­da­tion that his sen­tence be reduced to life with­out parole. In an unusu­al move, Mr. Allen orig­i­nal­ly plead­ed guilty to mur­der­ing his girl­friend with­out receiv­ing any ben­e­fit in sen­tenc­ing, and has tes­ti­fied that he did so to spare his fam­i­ly and the vic­tim’s fam­i­ly the trau­ma of a tri­al. Allen was shot in the head at the time of his…

Donald Heller (pic­tured), who wrote California​’s death penal­ty law, and Ron Briggs, who led the cam­paign to rein­state the law in 1978, are now advo­cat­ing for replac­ing the death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. Both now say that the law did not have the result they intended. ​“At the time, we were of the impres­sion that it would do swift jus­tice, that it would get the crim­i­nals and mur­der­ers through the sys­tem quick­ly and apply…

A new study pub­lished on the Social Science Resource Network by a group of pro­fes­sors at Cornell University found a high inci­dence of racial dis­par­i­ties in the oper­a­tion of Delaware​’s death penal­ty. The study, pub­lished in con­junc­tion with a sym­po­sium hon­or­ing the late David Baldus (pic­tured), exam­ined the state’s death penal­ty since 1972 and found: — Of 49 defen­dants sen­tenced to death since 1972, 53% were black, 39% were white, and 8% were Hispanic or Native American. In…

On April 5, the state sen­ate in Connecticut approved (20 – 16) a bill to repeal the death penal­ty and replace it with a sen­tence of life with­out a parole. The bill is prospec­tive and would not affect the 11 inmates cur­rent­ly on death row. The sen­ate passed an amend­ment to the orig­i­nal repeal bill requir­ing future defen­dants con­vict­ed of mur­der with spe­cial cir­cum­stances to be sub­ject to the same con­fine­ment con­di­tions as cur­rent death row inmates. Sen. Gayle Slossberg,…

The Connecticut Senate is expect­ed to vote as ear­ly as Wednesday (April 4) on a bill to replace the death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. The bill, which would only affect future sen­tenc­ing, passed the Judiciary Committee on March 21 and needs at least 18 votes to pass in the Senate. If it pass­es the Senate, it is con­sid­ered like­ly to pass the House, and Governor Dannel Malloy has pledged to sign the bill into law. A sim­i­lar bill passed the General Assembly in…

The Death Penalty Information Center is pleased to present its first pod­cast in Spanish. This pod­cast is part of our series, DPIC On The Issues, and is now avail­able for lis­ten­ing and down­load­ing. Our pod­cast in Spanish is the 18^th in the series of pod­casts, and it dis­cuss­es gen­er­al death penal­ty top­ics, with a focus on pub­lic opin­ion among Hispanics, the pop­u­la­tion of minori­ties on death row, and the use of the death penal­ty in Spanish-speaking countries.

Thirty-four high-pro­­file for­mer judges and law enforce­ment offi­cials recent­ly filed an ami­cus brief argu­ing against Virginia​’s efforts to rein­state the con­vic­tion of Justin Wolfe (pic­tured). Wolfe’s attor­neys main­tain he was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in a 2002 mur­der-for-hire case because of false tes­ti­mo­ny from the actu­al shoot­er, Owen Barber. In 2005, Barber admit­ted to lying under oath, saying, ​“The pros­e­cu­tion and my own defense attorney…