Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Montana Assistant Attorney General John Connor has voiced sup­port for a leg­isla­tive mea­sure that would abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in his state. Stating his belief that the death penal­ty does not deter crime and is expen­sive, Connor told the Montana House Judiciary Committee, ​“It seems to me to be the ulti­mate incon­gruity to say we respect life so much that we’re going to ded­i­cate all our mon­ey, all our resources, our legal exper­tise and our entire…

The FBI recent­ly released the lat­est ver­sion of its Uniform Crime Reports: Crime in the United States 2005. The report showed that the mur­der rate in 2005 (5.6 mur­ders per 100,000 peo­ple) was the same as in 2001, with lit­tle change in the inter­ven­ing years. Death sen­tences, exe­cu­tions and the size of death row all declined dur­ing this peri­od. As in pre­vi­ous years, the South had the high­erst mur­der rate, 6.6, among the 4 geo­graph­i­cal regions. Over 80% of the…

The Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment vot­ed on November 12 to rec­om­mend the aboli­ti­ion of the death penal­ty in the state. In a 13 – 7 vote, the Commission cit­ed the pos­si­bil­i­ty that an inno­cent per­son could be mis­tak­en­ly exe­cut­ed, as well as geo­graph­i­cal and racial dis­par­i­ties in how it is used. Benjamin Civiletti, the chair of the com­mis­sion and a for­mer U.S. attor­ney gen­er­al, said,​“It’s hap­haz­ard in how it’s applied, and that’s…

Less than a month after the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it will recon­sid­er the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the death penal­ty for juve­nile offend­ers, two state leg­isla­tive bod­ies have passed mea­sures to ban the prac­tice. The New Hampshire Senate passed its bill to ban the exe­cu­tion of those who were under the age of 18 at the time of their offense on February 19, 2004. The mea­sure now moves to the House, where a com­mit­tee hear­ing and vote are expect­ed in the…

A new study pub­lished in the Washington Law Review address­es the racial and geo­graph­i­cal dis­par­i­ties in the imple­men­ta­tion of the fed­er­al death penal­ty. The study, con­duct­ed by G. Ben Cohen, Counsel for the Capital Appeals Project in New Orleans, and Robert J. Smith, Counsel for the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School, con­cludes that the dis­par­i­ties in the fed­er­al death penal­ty may exist because…

According to the lat­est fig­ures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Hispanics rep­re­sent a larg­er pro­por­tion of those on death row than in the past. Hispanics con­sti­tut­ed almost 20% of the new admis­sions to death row in 2009 (18 new inmates). Half of the new Hispanic death row inmates were from California, bring­ing their total to 157 Hispanic inmates, the most in the coun­try. Hispanics now rep­re­sent 13.5% of the U.S. death row population.

On December 22, attor­neys for John Green filed a brief with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ask­ing that a pre-tri­al hear­ing con­cern­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s death penal­ty be allowed to con­tin­ue. An ami­cus brief in sup­port of con­tin­u­ing the hear­ing was also filed by for­mer gov­er­nors, leg­is­la­tors, for­mer judges and pros­e­cu­tors, vic­tim fam­i­ly mem­bers and freed death row inmates, all of whom…