Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…