Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

An execution date of September 23 was recently set for Teresa Lewis, the only woman on Virginia’s death row. Although a number of other people were involved in the same crime, including the actual shooters of the two victims, Lewis was the only person sentenced to death. She pled guilty at trial. Since being sent to death row in 2002, Lewis has taken responsibility and apologized for her actions. She has had an exemplary record while in prison and does not appear to be a future danger if she…

In a preliminary report, the Texas Forensic Science Commission recently found that fire investigators used flawed science in the case that led to the death sentence and execution of Cameron Todd Willingham. Willingham was executed in 2004, having been convicted of setting the fire that killed his three children. Willingham had always maintained his innocence and said the fire could have been an accident. The Commission acknowledged that new fire investigation standards were developed in 1992…

Terrence Dwyer, formerly with the New York Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation, recently chronicled the evolution of his thinking about the death penalty and whether it serves the needs of law enforcement. Dwyer cited several examples of recent exonerations and noted, “Clearly, by keeping the death penalty in place, we run the unacceptable risk of executing the innocent. Those of us in law enforcement do our best to take the guilty off the streets, and more often than not we get it right.

A hearing to set an execution date for Texas death row inmate Humberto Leal was postponed after the presiding judge received a letter from a high-ranking U.S. State Department official. Leal, a Mexican citizen who was sentenced to death in 1995, had already been transferred to Bexar County Jail for the hearing to set the execution date. Harold Hongju Koh, a top legal adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, wrote the judge requesting an indefinite postponement while Congress is working on…

Sharon Keller, the presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, received a public warning from the State Commission on Judicial Conduct on July 16 for her conduct in barring access to the courts to a death row inmate who was about to be executed in 2007. The Commission said her actions constituted “willful or persistent conduct that is clearly inconsistent with the proper performance of her duties.” When requested at home to allow a late-appeal filing by death row inmate Michael…