Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

On December 8, the U.S. Supreme Court over­ruled a low­er fed­er­al court that had giv­en relief to Joseph Kindler, a Pennsylvania death row inmate. Kindler had been con­vict­ed of mur­der in 1982, but then escaped to Canada from the Philadelphia Detention Center in 1984. Prior to his escape, his attor­neys had filed post-ver­­dict motions chal­leng­ing his con­vic­tion and sen­tence. Kindler was sub­se­quent­ly caught and, upon his return to the U.S., he tried…

Renowned death penal­ty defense attor­ney Andrea Lyon​’s forth­com­ing book, Angel of Death Row: My Life as a Death Penalty Defense Lawyer, chron­i­cles her 30 years of expe­ri­ence rep­re­sent­ing clients in cap­i­tal mur­der cas­es. In all of the 19 cas­es where she rep­re­sent­ed defen­dants who were found guilty of cap­i­tal mur­der, jurors spared her clients’ lives. Lyon, who was fea­tured in the PBS doc­u­men­tary Race to Execution and was called the ​“angel of death row”…

Franklin E. Zimring is a dis­tin­guished pro­fes­sor of law and schol­ar at the Berkeley School of Law who has fol­lowed the devel­op­ment of the mod­ern death penal­ty over many decades. Writing recent­ly in the National Law Journal, Prof. Zimring said the recent action by the American Law Institute to with­draw the death penal­ty pro­vi­sions from its Model Penal Code deprives the pun­ish­ment of any legal legit­i­ma­cy. “[T]he insti­tute has pulled…

On December 4, the New Hampshire Commission to Study the Death Penalty held a hear­ing in Concord to exam­ine the cost of the death penaty in the state. The twen­­ty-two mem­ber Commission, led by retired Judge Walter Murphy, has been charged with con­sid­er­ing sev­er­al issues, includ­ing whether the death penal­ty is a deter­rent, if it is arbi­trar­i­ly applied, and if it cov­ers the appro­pri­ate crimes. The Commission is con­sid­er­ing alter­na­tives to cap­i­tal punishment and…

Justices John Paul Stevens and Clarence Thomas dis­agreed over whether to grant a stay of exe­cu­tion to Cecil Johnson, Jr., who was was con­vict­ed of mur­der in a 1980 shoot­ing at a con­ve­nience store in Tennessee. Johnson had been on death row for near­ly three decades. Justice Stevens said this lengthy time between his sen­tenc­ing and exe­cu­tion could amount to cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment: “[T]he delay itself sub­jects death row inmates to decades…

On November 30, the United States Supreme Court over­turned the death sen­tence of George Porter, a Korean War vet­er­an from Florida who had been con­vict­ed of mur­der in 1988. The Court stat­ed that Porter’s tri­al lawyer failed to inves­ti­gate and present ample mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence, includ­ing the fact that Porter’s bat­tle ser­vice in the war left him severe­ly trau­ma­tized. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit had held that such evi­dence would not have…