Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Former California Attorney General and Los Angeles District Attorney John Van de Kamp recent­ly wrote an op-ed call­ing for an end to the state’s death penal­ty in light of the economic crisis. ​“With California fac­ing its most severe fis­cal cri­sis in recent mem­o­ry — with dra­con­ian cuts about to be imposed from Sacramento that will affect every res­i­dent of the state — it would be crazy not to con­sid­er the fact that it will add as much as $1…

U.N. Special Investigator Philip Alston has sub­mit­ted a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva crit­i­ciz­ing the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty in the U.S. Alston calls for the U.S. to enact more strin­gent safe­guards to pro­tect the inno­cent, say­ing the cur­rent appli­ca­tion some­times leads to mis­car­riages of justice. ​“It is wide­ly acknowl­edged that inno­cent peo­ple have most like­ly been exe­cut­ed in the U.S,” Alston said. ​“Yet, in Alabama and Texas,…

The lat­est edi­tion of Lapham’s Quarterly fea­tures essays from a wide vari­ety of authors reflect­ing on crime and pun­ish­ment. At least one of the arti­cles, by Christopher Hitchens, focus­es on the death penal­ty. In ​“Staking a Life,” Hitchens draws on his back­ground in reli­gion, moral­i­ty, and gov­ern­ment to explore why the United States con­tin­ues to uti­lize cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment while many of our allies have abandoned it. ​“I have heard a num­ber of sug­gest­ed answers: two in particular…

On June 1, in the case of Bobby v. Bies, the U.S. Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly ruled that Michael Bies had to bring his claim of men­tal retar­da­tion before a sep­a­rate state hear­ing, there­by revers­ing the low­er fed­er­al courts that held such a hear­ing would con­sti­tute dou­ble jeop­ardy. The Court held that Ohio could con­test Bies’ asser­tion that he is men­tal­ly retard­ed and that this does not sub­ject Bies to dou­ble jeop­ardy, despite the fact that the Ohio…

Former Congressman Bob Barr of Georgia has called for a full court hear­ing on the new evi­dence offered by death row inmate Troy Davis regard­ing his pos­si­ble inno­cence. Davis’s attor­neys have sub­mit­ted a peti­tion to the U.S. Supreme Court request­ing such a hear­ing. Barr not­ed that part of the basis the low­er courts have used in refus­ing to hold a hear­ing is the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, a law that he helped write. Barr, who also served as a U.S. Attorney in Georgia, wrote…

The Ride: A Shocking Murder and a Bereaved Father’s Journey from Rage to Redemption is a new book by Brian MacQuarrie that explores a par­en­t’s grief and sub­se­quent trans­for­ma­tion through the sto­ry of Robert Curley in Massachusetts. Curley’s 10-year-old son, Jeffrey, was a vic­tim of abduc­tion and mur­der in 1997. The mur­der shocked and out­raged the com­mu­ni­ty of East Cambridge out­side of Boston. MacQuarrie explores the father’s evolution ​“from grief to anger to activism against…

On May 28, Nebraska​’s Governor Dave Heineman signed a bill chang­ing the state’s method of exe­cu­tion from elec­tro­cu­tion to lethal injec­tion. Nebraska had been with­out a legal method of exe­cu­tion since February 2008 when the state’s Supreme Court found the elec­tric chair uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Before exe­cu­tions in the state can resume, Nebraska still needs to devel­op pro­ce­dures for lethal injec­tions and the new law will be test­ed in court. Nebraska was the last state to have the…