Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

The num­ber of mur­ders in New Jersey declined 24% in the first six months of 2009 com­pared to the same peri­od last year. Murders declined in 2008, the year after the state abol­ished the death penal­ty, mark­ing the first time since 1999 that New Jersey has seen a drop in mur­ders for two con­sec­u­tive years. Murders dropped 11% in 2007, the year fol­low­ing a state-imposed mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions, which was insti­tut­ed in 2006. Governor Jon…

The President of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki, announced on August 3 that he is com­mut­ing the death sen­tences of every­one on the coun­try’s death row to life impris­on­ment. The President cit­ed the wait to face exe­cu­tion of the more than 4,000 death row inmates as​“undue men­tal anguish and suf­fer­ing.” No one has been exe­cut­ed in Kenya for 22 years. The President said he was fol­low­ing the advice of a con­sti­tu­tion­al com­mit­tee. Mr. Kibaki has…

In 1984, Juan Melendez was sent to Florida’s death row for the mur­der of Delbert Baker even though no phys­i­cal evi­dence linked him to the crime. In 2002, he was released with all charges vacat­ed after it was found that pros­e­cu­tors had with­held crit­i­cal evi­dence in the case. He became the 99^th per­son exon­er­at­ed in the United States since 1976, and the 20^th from Florida. As of today, 135 peo­ple have been exon­er­at­ed. Juan…

On July 28, Brian Dugan plead­ed guilty to the rape and mur­der of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico in Illinois 25 years ago. Two oth­er men, Rolando Cruz, (pic­tured) and Alejandro Hernandez, were orig­i­nal­ly charged with the mur­der and were sen­tenced to death. They were even­tu­al­ly exon­er­at­ed in 1995 after numer­ous tri­als. At the plead­ing, DuPage County State’s Attorney Joseph Birkett acknowl­edged that there had nev­er been any physical evidence…

A recent study by Professor Michael Radelet and Traci Lacock of the University of Colorado found that 88% of the nation’s lead­ing crim­i­nol­o­gists do not believe the death penal­ty is an effec­tive deter­rent to crime. The study, Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates? The Views of Leading Criminologists, pub­lished in the Journal of Criminal Law and Crimonology, con­clud­ed,​“There is over­whelm­ing con­sen­sus among America’s top crim­i­nol­o­gists that the empirical…

In Pennsylvania, the state goes through the expen­sive and time-con­­­sum­ing process of try­ing many death penal­ty cas­es and fight­ing appeals, but almost all cas­es end with a life sen­tence. According to a recent Associated Press study of what hap­pens in cap­i­tal cas­es in the state, 124 death sen­tences have been over­turned and resen­tenced. When these cas­es went through the jus­tice sys­tem a sec­ond time with the orig­i­nal errors cor­rect­ed, 95% (118)…

In response to an amend­ment to the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act that would add the death penal­ty as a pun­ish­ment for cer­tain offens­es under the Act, Senator Edward Kennedy (MA) entered a state­ment into the Congressional Record high­light­ing some of the risks of the death penal­ty. An excerpt of his statement…