Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

On Nov.19, a Davidson County judge ruled that Tennessee​’s lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dure was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, pos­si­bly delay­ing the exe­cu­tion of Stephen Michael West and oth­ers on death row. Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman, who issued the rul­ing, said that the state’s lethal injection procedure ​“allows for death by suf­fo­ca­tion while con­scious,” because it did not spec­i­fy a suf­fi­cient dosage for sodi­um thiopen­tal, the first of three drugs used in lethal injec­tions. In Baze v.

Gerald Kogan, a for­mer Florida Supreme Court Justice, and Mark White, for­mer gov­er­nor of Texas (pic­tured), recent­ly urged the U.S. Supreme Court to con­sid­er the death penal­ty appeal of Boyd v. Allen because of inad­e­quate defense rep­re­sen­ta­tion. According to the authors of an op-ed appear­ing in the National Law Journal, William Boyd’s defense lawyers in Alabama were bare­ly paid and did very lit­tle to try to save his life.

In November, a pre­lim­i­nary res­o­lu­tion was pre­sent­ed to the United Nations General Assembly for a mora­to­ri­um on the use of the death penal­ty around the world. Panama, the European Union, Paraguay, Philippines, East Timor, Rwanda, Mozambique and Russia were among the res­o­lu­tion’s spon­sors. Other co-spon­­sors includ­ed nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The res­o­lu­tion received 107 votes in favor, 38 against and 36 absten­tions. In 2007, a sim­i­lar res­o­lu­tion was adopted by…

The Illinois Capital Reform Study Committee, cre­at­ed by the state leg­is­la­ture in 2003 and head­ed by Thomas P. Sullivan, a for­mer U.S. Attorney, recent­ly issued its sixth and final report on the Illinois death penal­ty. The report found that tax­pay­ers are spend­ing tens of mil­lions of dol­lars on the pros­e­cu­tion of a large num­ber of death-penal­­ty cas­es, even though rel­a­tive­ly few result in actu­al death sen­tences. Since 2003, 18 peo­ple have been sen­tenced to death, even though 500…

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland grant­ed clemen­cy to Sidney Cornwell, reduc­ing this sen­tence to life with­out parole. Cornwell faced exe­cu­tion on November 16 for a 1996 gang-relat­ed shoot­ing in Youngstown. Attorneys for Cornwell argued that he grew up in an abu­sive envi­ron­ment and that he suf­fered from a genet­ic con­di­tion that con­tributed to his vio­lent ten­den­cies. The attor­neys also said that Cornwell’s death sen­tence was disproportionate to…

Recent DNA tests raise seri­ous doubts about the con­vic­tion of a man exe­cut­ed in Texas in 2000. The tests revealed that a strand of hair found at the scene of a liquor-store shoot­ing did not belong to Claude Jones, as was orig­i­nal­ly implied by the pros­e­cu­tion. Instead, the hair belonged to the vic­tim. Jones was exe­cut­ed for the mur­der of the store’s own­er. The strand of hair was the only piece of phys­i­cal evi­dence that placed Jones at the scene of the crime,…

The death penal­ty under the Uniform Code of Military Justice was rein­stat­ed in 1984. The mil­i­tary death row is locat­ed at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. There are cur­rent­ly sev­en death row inmates await­ing exe­cu­tion, five of whom are African-Americans and two of whom are white. Unlike state exe­cu­tions, mem­bers of the mil­i­tary can­not be exe­cut­ed unless the President per­son­al­ly con­firms the death sen­tence. The President also has the pow­er to com­mute a death sentence…