Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

The edi­tor of the edi­to­r­i­al page of the Palm Beach Post recent­ly called for an end to the death penal­ty in Florida. Citing DPIC​’s recent report on the costs of the death penal­ty, Randy Schultz notes that,​“Every objec­tive study shows that life impris­on­ment costs much less than sen­tenc­ing some­one to death.”​“Money,” he writes,​“dri­ves the new debate in Florida about crim­i­nal jus­tice.” In 2009, the state…

An edi­to­r­i­al in the Salt Lake Tribune recent­ly called for an end to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, stat­ing that​“the legal, moral and prac­ti­cal argu­ments against cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment have evolved from sound to unas­sail­able” since the pun­ish­ment was rein­stat­ed over 30 years ago. The edi­to­r­i­al points to the fal­li­bil­i­ty of the sys­tem as a major con­cern, cit­ing the Death Penalty Information Center​’s report that nine inmates have been…

Researchers from the University of Texas at Dallas recent­ly pub­lished a study on whether exe­cu­tions deter homi­cides using state pan­el date and employ­ing well-known econo­met­ric pro­ce­dures for pan­el analy­sis. The authors found​“no empir­i­cal sup­port for the argu­ment that the exis­tence or appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty deters prospec­tive offend­ers from com­mit­ting homi­cide.” The study was pub­lished in the jour­nal of Criminology and Public…

Los Angeles Chief of Police William Bratton recent­ly defend­ed San Francisco Distrist Attorney Kamala Harris for not seek­ing the death penal­ty against a sus­pect in a police killing.​“It’s much cheap­er to sen­tence them to life in prison and throw away the key,” said Bratton, who is endors­ing Harris in seek­ing elec­tion as California’s…

A recent study pub­lished by a Duke University econ­o­mist revealed North Carolina could save $11 mil­lion annu­al­ly if it dropped the death penal­ty. Philip J. Cook, a pro­fes­sor at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, cal­cu­lat­ed the extra state costs of the death penal­ty dur­ing fis­cal years 2005 and 2006. He cal­cu­lat­ed over $21 mil­lion worth of expens­es that would have been saved if the death penal­ty had been…

County esti­mates in Texas indi­cate that the death penal­ty sys­tem is much more expen­sive than sen­tenc­ing inmates to life impris­on­ment. Gray County spent near­ly $1 mil­lion seek­ing the death penal­ty against Levi King, even though he plead­ed guilty to mur­der. Moreover, these costs do not include the cost of appeals, which will fur­ther increase the cost of the cap­i­tal case, nor the costs of cas­es in which the death penal­ty is sought but not giv­en. By…

A recent New York Times edi­to­r­i­al com­ment­ed on the new one-drug lethal injec­tion pro­to­col used in Ohio for the first time on December 8, but con­clud­ed that​“the exe­cu­tion only rein­forced that any form of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is legal­ly sus­pect and moral­ly wrong.” The Times agreed with the late Justice Harry Blackmun who called such manip­u­la­tions​“tinker[ing] with the machin­ery of death.” The edi­to­r­i­al also noted…