Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

On February 22, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear, and then sum­mar­i­ly reversed, a fed­er­al appeals court deci­sion that would have giv­en a Texas defen­dant a new tri­al based on improp­er jury selec­tion. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had ruled that Anthony Haynes should be retried or released because a prospec­tive juror was improp­er­ly exclud­ed based on the juror’s race. Two dif­fer­ent judges had presided over the jury selec­tion; one actually…

A bill that would have end­ed the death penal­ty in Kansas lost by a tie vote of 20 – 20 in the state Senate on February 19. The bill would have replaced the death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. Republican Senator Carolyn McGinn, the orig­i­nal spon­sor of the leg­is­la­tion, argued for repeal, point­ing to the high cost of the death penalty: ​“It costs half a mil­lion dol­lars, or 70 per­cent more, to try a death penal­ty case than a…

Amicus, an orga­ni­za­tion based in the United Kingdom that assists in the legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of those await­ing cap­i­tal tri­als in the United States, will be host­ing a mock tri­al at the Emmanuel Centre (pic­tured) in Westminster, London on Tuesday, March 2, begin­ning at 6:30 PM. The ques­tion is whether the death penal­ty in the U.S. per­verts the course of jus­tice. The tri­al will be presided over by Lord Woolf, Geoffrey Robertson, QC, and Sir Louis Blom-Cooper,…

Messages of Life from Death Row fea­tures cor­re­spon­dence from Texas death row inmate Roger McGowen to soci­ol­o­gist and writer Pierre Pradervand. McGowen’s let­ters describe his life on death row and point to flaws in the American crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, espe­cial­ly the arbi­trary nature of the death penal­ty. The pub­lish­er, BookSurge, said the book offers a ​“unique jux­ta­po­si­tion of care­ful­ly select­ed texts next to the heartfelt and…

A bill that would repeal the death penal­ty in South Dakota was sched­uled for a hear­ing in the House State Affairs Committee on February 10. The bill, HB 1245, would man­date life impris­on­ment with­out parole for peo­ple con­vict­ed of Class A felonies. South Dakota has only exe­cut­ed one per­son in the last 50 years, and cur­rent­ly has 3 peo­ple on death row. The bill is spon­sored by Rep. Gerald Lange (D‑Madison), and strong­ly sup­port­ed by the…

A new book by David Dow, The Autobiography of an Execution, cap­tures the author’s per­son­al and legal expe­ri­ences in rep­re­sent­ing over 100 inmates on death row. The book is a per­son­al mem­oir of Dow’s encounter with the death penal­ty sys­tem, as he rep­re­sents defen­dants and wit­ness­es their exe­cu­tions. Publisher’s Weekly called the book ​“sober­ing, grip­ping and can­did.” Dahlia Lithwick of Slate said it is ​“a pow­er­ful collage of…