Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

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 General…

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 defendants had…

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 sentences handed out for similar killings in Mahoning…

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, and this revelation raises the…

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…

Oklahoma recently filed a petition with a federal court asking that pentobarbital, an anesthetic agent used in euthanasia of animals, be allowed as a substitute for sodium thiopental in lethal injection procedures. Earlier this year, Hospira Inc., the nation’s sole manufacturer of the latter drug, announced that it has ceased production because of a shortage in one of the ingredients. The shortage has forced Oklahoma and other states to delay executions and seek other sources for the drug.