Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

On January 12, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Smith v. Spisak. After Frank Spisak was sen­tenced to death in Ohio and his ini­tial appeals were denied, he filed a habeas cor­pus peti­tion claim­ing that: 1) the jury instruc­tions and ver­dict forms used at his tri­al uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly required the jury to be unan­i­mous in choos­ing any mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors; and 2) his attor­ney’s clos­ing argu­ment was so inad­e­quate as to…

Louisiana has seen a steep decline in exe­cu­tions com­pared to pre­vi­ous decades, with only three exe­cu­tions in the last ten years. This is in stark con­trast to the eight men who were elec­tro­cut­ed with­in the span of 11 weeks in 1987, and it fol­lows a nation­wide trend of declin­ing exe­cu­tions and impo­si­tion of death…

“Media and Criminal Justice: The CSI Effect,” is a new book by Dennis J. Stevens, illus­trat­ing how tele­vi­sion pro­grams and media cov­er­age affect pub­lic per­cep­tion of crim­i­nal jus­tice. The author, who teach­es at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and Belmont Abbey College, main­tains that tele­vi­sion shows like ​“CSI” can give the false impres­sion that all crimes are eas­i­ly solved through advanced foren­sic sci­ence. The author also address­es the prob­lem of wrongful…

A recent arti­cle in the American Police Beat high­lights the con­cerns that police chiefs have with the costs and inef­fec­tive­ness of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The arti­cle notes, ​“The prob­lem, accord­ing to the police chiefs is the fact that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is cost­ing states hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars for rel­a­tive­ly few exe­cu­tions and noth­ing in the way of crime deter­rence… Hiring more police offi­cers, fight­ing drug abuse, longer prison sen­tences and improved…

A new book authored by Todd Peppers and Laura Trevvett Anderson, ​“Anatomy of An Execution,” fol­lows the sto­ry of Douglas Christopher Thomas, a juve­nile offend­er who was exe­cut­ed in Virginia in 2000. Thomas was con­vict­ed of a dou­ble homi­cide in 1990 and sen­tenced to death in 1991. He was one of the last juve­niles put to death before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the exe­cu­tion of those under the age of 18 at the time of their crime to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in 2005…

Gaile Owens (pic­tured) and Mary Winkler are two women who com­mit­ted sim­i­lar crimes under sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances in Tennessee. Both women suf­fered from abuse from the spous­es they killed, and both were exam­ined by the same psy­chol­o­gist, twen­ty years apart. The psy­chol­o­gist said both women suf­fered from bat­tered wom­an’s syn­drome. Mary Winkler con­front­ed her hus­band with a shot­gun and shot him in the back in 2006. Gaile Owens hired a stranger to…