Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Former death row inmate Michael Toney was freed from prison in Texas on September 2 after the state’s Attorney General asked that his death sen­tence and crim­i­nal charges be dis­missed. Toney was sen­tenced to death for a fatal bomb­ing in 1985 that occurred at a trail­er park in Lake Worth. He has always main­tained his inno­cence, and there was no phys­i­cal evi­dence lead­ing to his con­vic­tion. His con­vic­tion and death sen­tence were overturned by…

Recent sci­en­tif­ic reports indi­cat­ing that Texas like­ly exe­cut­ed an inno­cent man have spurred wide cov­er­age and com­men­tary. Cameron Todd Willingham was exe­cut­ed in 2004 for the arson mur­der of his three chil­dren. Fire experts now say the blaze was like­ly an acci­dent. Excerpts…

Most Californians would sup­port a sen­tence of life with­out parole for those con­vict­ed of mur­der rather than the death penal­ty accord­ing to a new opin­ion poll released on September 1. If the life sen­tence was com­bined with a require­ment that the inmate work to make resti­tu­tion to the fam­i­ly of the vic­tim, only 26% of Californians would still opt for the death penal­ty. The poll was con­duct­ed by Prof. Craig Haney of the…

Probably the most com­plete col­lec­tion of infor­ma­tion on exe­cu­tions car­ried out in the United States from colo­nial times to the mod­ern era was assem­bled by Watt Espy of Headland, Alabama. Espy died on August 13, 2009 at age 76, but his files and cat­a­log of exe­cu­tions was pre­served and trans­formed over the years into a search­able data­base by friends and schol­ars who appre­ci­at­ed his work. Much of his archive is now locat­ed at the State University of New…

In all states that use the death penal­ty, there are pro­vi­sions for sen­tenc­ing inmates to the alter­na­tive sen­tence of life with­out parole (LWOP). Prior to the U.S. Supreme Court’s rul­ing in Simmons v. South Carolina (1994), some states with LWOP did not inform the jury of this alter­na­tive even when so request­ed by the defense. Today, states apply a vari­ety of con­di­tions and use dif­fer­ing instruc­tions to inform the jury about this alternative…

Georgia is seek­ing the death penal­ty for Khan Dinh Phan, a Vietnamese immi­grant charged with mur­der, but after four years the case has not come to tri­al because the state has failed to ade­quate­ly fund the defense. Phan’s defense attor­neys are ask­ing the Georgia Supreme Court to dis­miss the death penal­ty part of the pros­e­cu­tion.​“You don’t have to have the death penal­ty in Georgia, but if you have it, the Constitution requires you must pro­vide the defense the…

A state ethics tri­bunal exam­in­ing the con­duct of the pre­sid­ing judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in a death penal­ty case con­clud­ed its pro­ceed­ings on August 20. Judge Sharon Keller is fac­ing a rep­ri­mand or removal from the bench for her con­duct on the day Michael Richard was exe­cut­ed in Texas on September 25, 2007. She had left the court ear­ly that day and was at home when she received a call from an assistant at…