Entries by Death Penalty Information Center


News 

Oct 202009

STUDIES: Disparities in Legal Representation in Harris County, Texas

Scott Phillips, a pro­fes­sor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Denver, recent­ly pub­lished a study that revealed dis­par­i­ties in who receives the death penal­ty inTexas. Phillips stud­ied the 504 death penal­ty cas­es that occurred between 1992 and 1999 in Harris County (Houston and sur­round­ing areas). Harris County is the largest juris­dic­tion in the United States to use a court-appoint­­ment sys­tem for select­ing lawyers to defend…

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News 

Oct 202009

DPIC Releases New Report on Costs of the Death Penalty and Police Chiefs’ Views

The Death Penalty Information Center has released its latest report, Smart on Crime: Reconsidering the Death Penalty in a Time of Economic Crisis.” The report com­bines an analy­sis of the costs of the death penal­ty with a new­ly released nation­al poll of police chiefs who put cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment at the bot­tom of their law enforcement…

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News 

Oct 162009

NEW VOICES: Judge Says Death Penalty too fraught with variables to survive”

Retired Federal Appeals Court Judge H. Lee Sarokin recent­ly offered a harsh cri­tique of the death penal­ty, espe­cial­ly chal­leng­ing the botched exe­cu­tion attempt of Romell Broom in Ohio in September. Citing moral­i­ty, arbi­trari­ness, and the dim prospects of clo­sure for the mur­der vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, Judge Sarokin called the impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty an errat­ic and flawed process that should not be per­mit­ted to continue. The sys­tem is too fraught with vari­ables to survive.

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News 

Oct 152009

Gallup Poll: Support for Death Penalty Remains Near 25-Year Low

The lat­est Gallup Poll on the death penal­ty shows 65% of Americans sup­port the death penal­ty, sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er than the 80% sup­port record­ed in 1994 and near the low­est sup­port of 64% in the past 25 years record­ed last year. Only 57% believe the death penal­ty is fair­ly applied, and 59% of Americans believe that an inno­cent per­son has been exe­cut­ed in the last five years. Gallup report­ed that sup­port for the death penal­ty is low­er if Americans are offered an explicit…

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News 

Oct 142009

Supreme Court to Review Effect of Gross Negligence” by Death Penalty Attorney

On October 13, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Holland v. Florida, a case rais­ing the question of whether gross neg­li­gence’ by a state-appoint­ed defense attor­ney in a death penal­ty case pro­vides a basis for extend­ing the time to file a fed­er­al habeas chal­lenge, in a case where the habeas plea was filed late despite repeat­ed instruc­tions from the client.” (sco​tus​blog​.com). In his peti­tion for cer­tio­rari to the Court, the…

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News 

Oct 132009

STUDIES: FBI Uniform Crime Report Finds Murder Rates Declined in 2008

The annu­al crime report released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation showed a decline in the nation­al mur­der rate. The rate dropped 4.7% in 2008 com­pared to 2007. Despite a region­al decline, the South still has the high­est mur­der rate among the four geo­graph­ic regions: 6.6 mur­ders per 100,000 peo­ple, high­er than the nation­al rate of 5.4. The Northeast still main­tains the low­est mur­der rate at 4.2. There were 16,272 mur­ders or non-neg­li­­gent manslaughters in…

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News 

Oct 092009

BOOKS: That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row

That Bird Has My Wings” is a new book by Jarvis Jay Masters, an inmate on San Quentins death row in California. In this mem­oir, Masters tells his sto­ry from an ear­ly life with his heron-addic­t­ed moth­er to an abu­sive fos­ter home. He describes his escape to the illu­so­ry free­dom of the streets and through lone­ly nights spent in bus sta­tions and juve­nile homes, and final­ly to life inside the walls of San Quentin Prison. Using the nub and filler from a…

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News 

Oct 072009

OPINION: Florida’s Death Penalty System Still Fraught with Problems’

A recent op-ed in the Florida Times-Union point­ed to con­tin­u­ing prob­lems in Florida’s death penal­ty sys­tem despite pri­or rec­om­men­da­tions for change in an American Bar Association report three years ago. The arti­cle was writ­ten by Raoul Cantero III, a for­mer Florida Supreme Court jus­tice appoint­ed by Gov. Jeb Bush, and Mark Schlakman, a senior pro­gram direc­tor for Florida State University’s Center for the Advancement of Human Rights. The authors state…

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News 

Oct 062009

Two More Exonerations From Death Row: 137th and 138th Persons Freed in Oklahoma

Two for­mer death row inmates who were charged with mur­der in a 1993 dri­ve-by shoot­ing were released on October 2 after spend­ing near­ly 14 years in prison, includ­ing years on Oklahoma’s death row. District Attorney David Prater dropped charges against Yancy Douglas (left),35, and Paris Powell (right), 36, after decid­ing the state’s key wit­ness was unreliable. Ethically, and on my duty, I could not pro­ceed in this case and had to dismiss it,”…

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News 

Oct 062009

Michael Toney, Recently Exonerated from Death Row in Texas, Dies in Car Crash

Michael Toney, who recent­ly became the 136th per­son exon­er­at­ed and freed from death row since 1973, died in a car crash on October 3 in East Texas. He had been released from jail one month ago on September 2 after the state dropped all charges against him for a 1985 bomb­ing that killed three peo­ple. Toney’s con­vic­tion was over­turned on December 17, 2008 by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals because the pros­e­cu­tion sup­pressed evi­dence relat­ing to the…

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