Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis will have a third clemency hearing before the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles on September 19, two days before his scheduled execution. The hearing will allow Davis to present witnesses the Board did not hear from in prior hearings as well as “renewed claims of innocence” regarding his conviction for killing Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in 1989. Doubts about Davis’ guilt were raised when some prosecution witnesses changed their stories…

Linda Geffin (pictured) was one of the Texas prosecutors who won a conviction and death sentence for Duane Buck in 1997. She is now the division chief of the Special Prosecutions Unit in the Office of the Harris County Attorney, and she is urging Gov. Rick Perry and other state officials to stop Buck’s September 15 execution because improper race evidence was put before the jury considering his sentence. In a letter to state officials, Geffin said that former Texas Attorney General John Cornyn…

Of the 16 death sentences that have been imposed since the U.S. military made significant changes to its death penalty system in 1984, 10 have been overturned and all the defendants were resentenced to life. There have been no executions, and the 6 remaining cases are still under appeal. Military appellate courts overturned the sentences because of mistakes made at many levels of the military’s judicial system, including inadequate defense representation, prosecutorial misconduct, and improper…

The latest edition of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s “Death Row USA” showed a slight increase of 9 inmates in the death row population in the United States between October 1, 2010 and January 1, 2011. However, death row is still significantly smaller now (3,251 inmates) than in 2000 (3,682 inmates). The size of death row also declined overall in 2010. The size of death row is affected by the number of death sentences and the number of executions. Nationally, the racial composition of those on…

DPIC has updated its Executions Per Death Death Sentence page to reflect data through 2010. This page lists states in order of the percentage of death sentences resulting in an execution since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. If every death sentence resulted in an execution, the state would be at 100%, or a rate of 1.00. Using this ratio of executions per death sentence, the first five states are Virginia (.725), Texas (.498), Utah (.368), Missouri (.347), and Delaware (.311). Of those…

Texas is planning to execute Hank Skinner on November 9 despite the fact that vital evidence from the crime scene in his case has not been subjected to DNA testing. Skinner has always maintained his innocence. In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court held that Skinner could file in federal court to compel the testing, but that litigation has not been completed. Moreover, a new Texas law became effective on September 1 to ensure that procedural barriers do not prevent the testing of biological evidence…

Texas inmate Duane Buck (pictured) is one of seven death row inmates whose death sentences were tainted by improper racial testimony presented at their trials. In 2000, then-Texas Attorney General John Cornyn (now Senator) confessed the state’s error to the U.S. Supreme Court, noting that seven cases had been tainted by improper prosecution testimony. “It is inappropriate to allow race to be considered as a factor in our criminal justice system,” Cornyn said. “The people of Texas want and…

A soon-to-be-published study has found significant racial disparities in the U.S. military’s death penalty. The study, which will be published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, found that minorities in the military are twice as likely to be sentenced to death as whites accused of similar crimes. The study examined all 105 potential capital cases since the military death penalty was reinstated in 1984. Of the 16 death sentences handed down in that time, 10 were of minority…

Florida has set an execution date of Septmeber 6 for Manuel Valle (pictured), a foreign national from Cuba who was deprived of his rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The European Union’s ambassador to the U.S. has asked Florida to halt the execution, and Florida’s Catholic Bishops have also requested clemency for Valle, saying, “Killing someone because they killed diminishes respect for life and promotes a culture of violence and vengeance.” The state plans to introduce…