Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

A recent arti­cle in Second Class Justice, a weblog ded­i­cat­ed to address­ing unfair­ness and dis­crim­i­na­tion in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, high­light­ed that the death penal­ty con­tin­ues to be arbi­trar­i­ly applied in the United States. Citing fig­ures from the American Judicature Society, author Robert Smith revealed that only 10% of U.S. coun­ties account­ed for all of the death sen­tences imposed between 2004 and 2009, and only 5% of the coun­ties account­ed for all death…

Lawyers for Cameron Todd Willingham​’s fam­i­ly recent­ly pre­sent­ed expert tes­ti­mo­ny at a court of inquiry in Texas to deter­mine whether Willingham was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and exe­cut­ed for start­ing a fire that killed his chil­dren. The lawyers pre­sent­ed tes­ti­mo­ny from nine experts who have reviewed evi­dence pre­sent­ed by fire mar­shals and found ​“many crit­i­cal errors,” as one report stat­ed. Gerald Hurst, who pub­lished a report regard­ing the evi­dence in the case,…

Lawyers for Jeffrey Landrigan, an Arizona death row inmate sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on October 26, have filed a motion ask­ing courts to com­pel the state to reveal its source of a drug to be used in his lethal injec­tion. Despite a nation­wide short­age of sodi­um thiopen­tal, Arizona recent­ly announced that it has obtained new sup­plies of the drug. The announce­ment came the same day that California filed a notice in fed­er­al court that it had…

On October 13, law enforce­ment offi­cers from the U.S. and Europe held the first pub­lic dis­cus­sion about whether the death penal­ty helps or hurts in keep­ing cit­i­zens safe, assists heal­ing for vic­tims, and uses crime-fight­­ing resources effi­cient­ly. The pan­elists addressed issues such as deter­rence, clo­sure to vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, and costs in rela­tion to alter­na­tives. Former Detective Superintendent Bob Denmark of Lancashire Constabulary, England, who inves­ti­gat­ed over 100…

On October 13, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear argu­ments in Skinner v. Switzer. Hank Skinner was con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing his girl­friend and her two sons in 1993 in their Texas home. He has always main­tained his inno­cence, and there is untest­ed DNA evi­dence that may prove some­one else com­mit­ted the crime. Some DNA test­ing was con­duct­ed before tri­al, plac­ing Skinner in the house where his girl­friend lived, a fact he does not dispute.