Entries by Death Penalty Information Center


News 

Feb 062012

MENTAL ILLNESS: Mississippi Inmate With Severe Mental Illness Faces Imminent Execution

Edwin Turner (pic­tured), a death row inmate in Mississippi, is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on February 8. His attor­ney, Jim Craig, has peti­tioned the U.S. Supreme Court and Governor Phil Bryant for a reprieve, based in part on Turner’s men­tal ill­ness. Craig said, The Supreme Court has not decid­ed the ques­tion of whether a pris­on­er with a severe men­tal dis­or­der or dis­abil­i­ty which sig­nif­i­cant­ly impairs that person’s abil­i­ty to ratio­nal­ly process infor­ma­tion, to…

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News 

Feb 032012

INTERNATIONAL: New Report on China’s Changing Attitudes Toward the Death Penalty

Roger Hood (pic­tured), Professor Emeritus of Criminology at the University of Oxford, has pub­lished a report on offi­cial atti­tudes towards cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in China. Abolition of the Death Penalty: China in World Perspective out­lines the changes over the past decade on this issue with­in Chinese aca­d­e­m­ic and judi­cial com­mu­ni­ties. Hood observed that one of the strongest jus­ti­fi­ca­tions for the death penal­ty in China is the belief that ret­ri­bu­tion based on the notion…

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News 

Feb 022012

RACE: New Video Highlights Stories of Jurors Excluded from Death Penalty Cases

A new video pro­duced by the American Civil Liberties Union fea­tures three North Carolina cit­i­zens who believe they were exclud­ed from serv­ing on juries in cap­i­tal cas­es because of their race. The video was released in con­junc­tion with the first court chal­lenge brought under North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act. The defen­dant, Marcus Robinson, is ask­ing his death sen­tence be com­mut­ed to life with­out parole because potential African-American…

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News 

Feb 012012

EDITORIALS: Mistakes are made”

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in Nebraskas Journal Star urged sup­port for a bill to replace the death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life in prison. Among the rea­sons cit­ed for its posi­tion was the risk of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son. The edi­to­r­i­al not­ed that advance­ments in DNA test­ing have shown the fal­li­bil­i­ty of the current system: Seventeen peo­ple who were on death row have been set free after DNA test­ing proved they were wrong­ly con­vict­ed.” The edi­to­r­i­al also pointed to…

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News 

Jan 312012

Possible Innocence Case Highlights Concerns About Ohio’s Death Penalty

Tyrone Noling (pic­tured) is an inmate on Ohios death row whose guilt has been called into doubt by a lack of phys­i­cal evi­dence, recant­i­ng wit­ness­es and refusal by the state to con­duct a DNA test. Andrew Cohen, writ­ing in a recent issue of The Atlantic, com­pared Noling’s case to that of Troy Davis, who was exe­cut­ed in Georgia in 2011, despite doubts about his guilt. Noling was con­vict­ed of the 1990 mur­ders of an elder­ly cou­ple in their home.

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News 

Jan 302012

RESOURCES: Recent Legislative Acitivity on the Death Penalty

DPIC is col­lect­ing infor­ma­tion on pend­ing leg­is­la­tion relat­ed to the death penal­ty. For exam­ple, at least nine states will con­sid­er bills to repeal the death penal­ty in 2012. In California, a coali­tion called Taxpayers for Justice has been col­lect­ing sig­na­tures to place a death penal­ty repeal ini­tia­tive on the bal­lot in November. On January 25, the Washington Senate Judiciary Committee held a pub­lic hear­ing on a bill to repeal the death penal­ty. The bill’s…

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News 

Jan 272012

Relatives of Inmate Who Taunted Authorities About Ease on Death Row Paint a Different Picture

Relatives of a North Carolina inmate who bragged he had an easy life on death row recent­ly made clear that he is seri­ous­ly men­tal­ly ill and suf­fer­ing great­ly in his con­fine­ment. Danny Hembree Jr. had writ­ten a let­ter to his local news­pa­per taunt­ing­ly describ­ing his expe­ri­ence on death row as a life of leisure filled with col­or TV and naps. However, his sis­ter, Kathy Hembree Ledbetter, said he was a depressed man who had lashed out in hope­less­ness. She apol­o­gized to the…

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News 

Jan 262012

Recent U.S. Supreme Court Decision Highlights Representation Problems in Alabama

On January 18, the U.S. Supreme Court (7 – 2) ordered a new hear­ing in fed­er­al court for Cory Maples, an Alabama death row inmate whose state and fed­er­al appeals had been reject­ed by low­er courts because his lawyers quit and missed a crit­i­cal fil­ing dead­line. Writing for six of the Court’s Justices, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg high­light­ed the poor qual­i­ty of rep­re­sen­ta­tion offered by the state in death penal­ty cas­es. The…

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News 

Jan 252012

STUDIES:“Death Penalty for Female Offenders”

Professor Victor Streib (pic­tured) of the Ohio Northern University Law School has pub­lished the lat­est edi­tion of his peri­od­ic reports, Death Penalty for Female Offenders. This study offers sta­tis­tics and infor­ma­tion relat­ed to women who have been exe­cut­ed or are cur­rent­ly on death row. Among the report’s find­ings are: — In 2011, women con­sti­tut­ed 6.4% of all per­sons sen­tenced to death, the high­est per­cent­age for any year since 1973. — As of the end of…

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News 

Jan 242012

NEW VOICES: Former Ohio Attorney General Now Says Society Better Off Without Death Penalty

Jim Petro (pic­tured), for­mer Attorney General of Ohio, strong­ly sup­port­ed the death penal­ty as a state leg­is­la­tor, believed the state would save mon­ey because of the death penal­ty, and that it would act as a deter­rent. But, he recently said, Neither of those things have occurred, so I ask myself, Why would I vote for it again?’ I don’t think I would. I don’t think the law has done any­thing to ben­e­fit soci­ety and us. It’s cheap­er and, in my…

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