Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue vetoed the bill that would have repealed the state’s Racial Justice Act that was passed in 2009. The Act allows death row inmates to appeal their death sen­tences based on sta­tis­ti­cal stud­ies show­ing racial bias. In issu­ing the veto, the gov­er­nor, who sup­ports the death penal­ty, said,​“I am veto­ing Senate Bill 9 for the same rea­son that I signed the Racial Justice Act two years ago: it is sim­ply unac­cept­able for racial…

In a recent op-ed in Oregon’s Statesman Journal, for­mer Texas Governor Mark White (pic­tured) applaud­ed Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber​’s deci­sion to grant a reprieve to death row inmate Gary Haugen and to halt all exe­cu­tions in the state. Governor White wrote,​“I think Kitzhaber’s deci­sion is respectable and coura­geous. In Oregon, as in Texas, it is clear­ly with­in the con­sti­tu­tion­al author­i­ty of the gov­er­nor to grant reprieves and…

The fourth edi­tion of Robert Bohm’s​“Deathquest: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Capital Punishment in the United States,” is now avail­able through Anderson Publishing. The new edi­tion is updat­ed with dis­cus­sion of the lat­est research on the effec­tive­ness of the death penal­ty, the poten­tial for dis­crim­i­na­to­ry appli­ca­tion, costs, and new data on mis­car­riages of jus­tice, pub­lic opin­ion, and the influ­ences of reli­gion. This textbook…

On December 7, the American Bar Association released a report assess­ing Kentucky​’s sys­tem of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and call­ing for a halt to exe­cu­tions in the state. The report was pre­pared by the Kentucky Assessment Team on the Death Penalty, which includ­ed law pro­fes­sors, for­mer state supreme court jus­tices, and prac­tic­ing attor­neys. The two-year study rec­om­mend­ed that the state tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend exe­cu­tions until serious issues…

According to a recent study by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Virginia exe­cutes the high­est pro­por­tion of peo­ple sen­tenced to death of any state in the coun­try. Of the 149 death sen­tences hand­ed down through 2010, 108 have result­ed in an exe­cu­tion, a rate of about 72 per­cent. Virginia is sec­ond to Texas in the total num­ber of exe­cu­tions car­ried out since 1976, but Texas has exe­cut­ed less than half of those sen­tenced to death. In many states, less…

The lat­est edi­tion of the Death Penalty Information Center’s series of pod­casts, DPIC on the Issues, is now avail­able for lis­ten­ing or down­load­ing. This pod­cast — the 17^th in the series — dis­cuss­es inter­na­tion­al views on the death penal­ty and how those views might affect cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States. The pod­cast includes dis­cus­sions about the role of inter­na­tion­al phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies in lethal injections being…

An edi­to­r­i­al in the New York Times crit­i­cized a recent rul­ing by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, uphold­ing the heavy bur­den Georgia places on offend­ers with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties. In order to be exempt from the death penal­ty, defen­dants must prove​“beyond a rea­son­able doubt” that they are men­tal­ly retard­ed. The U.S. Supreme Court held in 2002 that such defen­dants can­not receive the…

Gussie Vann of Tennessee has been added to the list of those exon­er­at­ed from death row fol­low­ing the dis­missal of all charges against him in September 2011. Vann becomes the 139^th for­mer death row inmate exon­er­at­ed since 1973. Vann was orig­i­nal­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1994 for a sex­u­al assault and mur­der of his own daugh­ter, Necia Vann, in 1992. However, in 2008 fol­low­ing state post-con­vic­­­tion review, Circuit Court Senior…