Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

The U.S. Supreme Court has set oral-argument dates in three death penalty-related cases for the upcoming 2010 – 2011 term. The Court begins its new term on Monday, October 4. On October 6, the Court will hear Connick v. Thompson. This case challenges an award of $14 million to John Thompson, who had been sentenced to death in New Orleans but was later acquitted of all charges. Lower courts had found that the district attorney’s office failed to train its lawyers about so-called Brady violations…

Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna recently said he is not sure the death penalty is the way to handle the worst crimes in his state. “I could live without it frankly. I think it’s very expensive, and the delays are inordinate, delaying closure for the victims’ families,” he said. McKenna said he uses the death penalty sparingly in Washington, reserving it for the most serious aggravated-murder convictions. He said he would continue to uphold the law, if the people still desired it: “I…

Teresa Lewis is scheduled to be executed on September 23 in Virginia, the first woman to be executed in that state in a century. But Lynn Litchfield, the former prison chaplain who came to know Lewis over six years, has said she “doesn’t deserve to die.” Litchfield recently wrote in Newsweek Magazine that Lewis “has an IQ of 72” and that “one of the the two men who carried out the killings admitt[ed] that it was he, not she, who masterminded the murders” of her husband and adult stepson. Ms.

On September 2, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland (pictured) granted clemency to Kevin Keith, commuting his death sentence to life without parole. Keith, who was convicted of killing three people, has always maintained his innocence, and some evidence pointed to another suspect. Gov. Strickland’s commutation statement addressed his concerns regarding Keith’s case: “Mr. Keith’s conviction relied upon the linking of certain eyewitness testimony with certain forensic evidence about which important…

Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell has signed 113 execution warrants during his two terms in office, yet it appears likely that he will leave office in a few months without seeing any of them carried out. Since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1978, only three men have been executed, all of whom had waived their appeals. Inadequate funding for criminal defense may be one of the primary reasons for this de facto moratorium. Since 1978, state and federal courts have overturned 124…

Kentucky Governor Steven Beshear recently held off signing death warrants for two inmates because of a shortage of the drug sodium thiopental, a key component of the state’s lethal injection protocol. Kentucky’s stock of the lethal injection drug expires October 1, and the Department of Corrections does not expect a new supply until early 2011 because the only supplier of this drug in the country, Hospira, is unable to obtain the active ingredient for the drug. Even when a new supplier for the…