Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

On February 29, Arizona is sched­uled to exe­cute Robert Moorman, who was sen­tenced to death for a 1984 mur­der. Moorman’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives have said the crime was com­mit­ted after years of sex­u­al abuse by the defendant’s adop­tive moth­er, whom he then killed and dis­mem­bered her body. Moorman was diag­nosed with men­tal retar­da­tion and attend­ed spe­cial edu­ca­tion class­es while in pub­lic school. His first stay at a mental institution…

Craig Watkins (pic­tured), the dis­trict attor­ney of Dallas County, Texas, recent­ly called for a review of the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem. Since becom­ing D.A. in 2007, Watkins has ini­ti­at­ed a con­vic­­­tion-inte­­gri­­­ty unit to exam­ine crim­i­nal cas­es in the coun­ty. Since 2001, Dallas County has exon­er­at­ed 27 inmates, includ­ing 22 through DNA evi­dence, most dur­ing Watkins’s tenure. None of these inmates were from death row. Regarding…

On February 21 the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a U.S. Court of Appeals deci­sion grant­i­ng a retri­al to James Lambert, who had been con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1984 in Pennsylvania. Lambert appealed his con­vic­tion, claim­ing that pros­e­cu­tors nev­er dis­closed evi­dence iden­ti­fy­ing an addi­tion­al co-defen­­­dant, in vio­la­tion of Brady v. Maryland. Lambert claimed this new evi­dence would have…

On February 22, Virginia’s leg­is­la­ture blocked a bill that would have allowed the death penal­ty for accom­plices to mur­der who did not actu­al­ly car­ry out the killing. The bill would have revised the state’s​“trig­ger­man rule,” which allows the death penal­ty only for the per­son direct­ly respon­si­ble for the actu­al mur­der. Two weeks ago, the Senate ver­sion of the bill was reject­ed by the Courts of Justice Committee on a 7 – 7 vote. The House then passed its…

A study ordered by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has found pay for court-appoint­ed defense lawyers in death penal­ty cas­es in Philadelphia to be​“gross­ly inad­e­quate.” The study, which was authored by Common Pleas Court Judge Benjamin Lerner, was ini­ti­at­ed after defense lawyers peti­tioned the Court to increase the fees or halt death-penal­­­ty cas­es. The study not­ed there are few­er than 30 lawyers in Philadelphia will­ing to take cap­i­­­tal-case appointments for…

A recent op-ed in the Miami Herald by Raoul Cantero (pic­tured), for­mer Justice of the Florida Supreme Court, called for state leg­is­la­tors to require una­nim­i­ty in the penal­ty phase of death penal­ty tri­als. Five years ago, a study con­duct­ed by the American Bar Association found that Florida was an out­lier in allow­ing cap­i­tal juries to find aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances and rec­om­mend death sen­tences by a sim­ple major­i­ty. The op-ed, co-written by…

A recent study pub­lished in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology about the U.S. Military death penal­ty sys­tem found that racial dis­par­i­ties among those sen­tenced to death are worse in the mil­i­tary than in oth­er crim­i­nal courts. The study, con­duct­ed by Catherine Grosso of Michigan State’s College of Law, the late David Baldus of the University of Iowa College of Law, and oth­ers, reviewed all potentially death-eligible…

In 2009, Maryland changed its cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment law, sharply lim­it­ing when the death penal­ty could be sought. Prosecutors can only pur­sue the death penal­ty in cas­es of first degree mur­der when there is DNA or oth­er bio­log­i­cal evi­dence link­ing the defen­dant to a mur­der, a video-taped con­fes­sion by the defen­dant, or a video link­ing the defen­dant to the mur­der. As the first case test­ing this statute nears com­ple­tion, DPIC​’s Executive Director,…

On February 15, Florida is sched­uled to exe­cute Robert Waterhouse, a 65-year-old inmate who was sen­tenced to death for a 1980 mur­der in St. Petersburg. Waterhouse has been on Florida’s death row for over three decades, longer than any inmate pre­vi­ous­ly exe­cut­ed by the state. His orig­i­nal death sen­tence was over­turned in 1988 after his appel­late attor­ney argued that Waterhouse’s tri­al lawyer erred by not pre­sent­ing the court with important…