Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

In a recent opin­ion poll con­duct­ed by Elon University in North Carolina, less than half of those polled believe that the the death penal­ty is the​“most appro­pri­ate pun­ish­ment for first degree mur­der.” When the same ques­tion was asked in 2005, 61% chose the death penal­ty as the appro­pri­ate sen­tence. In 2009, that num­ber had dropped to 48%, the same per­cent­age record­ed in the University’s 2007 poll.​“I would imag­ine the dif­fer­ence in opin­ion on our…

Senator Carolyn McGinn of Kansas (pic­tured) recent­ly pub­lished an op-ed call­ing for an end to the death penal­ty because it is too cost­ly and does not ben­e­fit the peo­ple. Sen. McGinn, a Republican from Sedgwick, is the spon­sor of a bill that would replace the death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. She explained that in light of the state’s bud­get deficit, Kansas is look­ing at ways to reduce gov­ern­ment spend­ing.​“One policy…

On March 4, the Maryland Senate reached a com­pro­mise on a death penal­ty repeal bill by amend­ing the bill so as to restrict cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions. The pro­posed revi­sion to the state’s death penal­ty statute would pre­clude mur­der cas­es where the only evi­dence is eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny and, in turn, require DNA evi­dence, video­taped evi­dence, or a vol­un­tary video­taped con­fes­sion. Sen. Jamie Raskin, a Montgomery County Democrat and pro­po­nent of death…

Former President Jimmy Carter wrote New Mexico’s Governor Bill Richardson to encour­age him to sup­port a bill repeal­ing the death penal­ty and replac­ing it with life in prison with­out parole.​“We encour­age your sup­port for this com­pre­hen­sive and vision­ary approach,” Carter wrote. In addi­tion to point­ing out how the extra mon­ey spent on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment could be bet­ter used else­where, Carter wrote, ​“As you know, the United States is one of the…

In a recent mil­i­tary death penal­ty case, the pros­e­cu­tors reject­ed a plea agree­ment that would have result­ed in a sen­tence of life in prison instead of the death penal­ty. The defen­dant, Sergeant Alberto Martinez, was then found not guilty on December 4, 2008, of mur­der­ing two fel­low sol­diers and walked free. Two years before the tri­al, Sgt. Martinez signed an offer to plead guilty to the mur­der charges and to describe​“the essen­tial facts and cir­cum­stances of the…

A Tennessee leg­isla­tive study com­mit­tee has end­ed its 16-month analy­sis of the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment process and has made rec­om­men­da­tions for achiev­ing a more fair and accu­rate sys­tem: . Require defense attor­neys in cap­i­tal cas­es to be high­ly qual­i­fied; . Mandate that defense attor­neys have uni­form access to evi­dence against their clients; . Require police offi­cers to record all inter­ro­ga­tions relat­ed to a homicide…

A new book, No Winners Here Tonight: Race, Politics, and Geography in One of the Country’s Busiest Death Penalty States, by Ohio jour­nal­ist Andrew Welsh-Huggins, explores the his­to­ry of Ohio’s death penal­ty and rais­es ques­tions of fair­ness by exam­in­ing the state’s expe­ri­ence with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Citing his­tor­i­cal exam­ples, the author argues that the death penal­ty has been car­ried out in an arbi­trary fash­ion from its ear­li­est days and has fallen…