Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

The Texas Forensic Science Commission will review the case of Cameron Todd Willingham (pic­tured) as its first case in its inves­ti­ga­tion of foren­sic mis­con­duct alle­ga­tions. Willingham was exe­cut­ed in 2004 in Texas for three deaths that occurred in 1991 from a fire in his home. The State Fire Marshal’s office had orig­i­nal­ly ruled that the blaze was an arson start­ed by an accel­er­ant. But the Innocence Project of Cardozo Law School in New York sub­mit­ted a 2006 report by five…

The Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment began hear­ing tes­ti­mo­ny from a wide vari­ety of wit­ness­es on issues relat­ed to the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem. After gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion regard­ing mat­ters such as pos­si­ble racial, geo­graph­ic and socioe­co­nom­ic dis­par­i­ties, on costs, and on the risks of exe­cut­ing the inno­cent, the 23-mem­ber Commission will offer rec­om­men­da­tions to the General Assembly to ensure that Maryland’s use of the death penalty is ​“free from bias and error” and achieves…

Jeffrey Wood is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on August 21 for a mur­der com­mit­ted by anoth­er man dur­ing a botched rob­bery at a gas sta­tion. Wood did not fire the gun that killed the vic­tim and was not inside the sta­tion when anoth­er man, Danny Reneau, com­mit­ted the mur­der. At Reneau’s tri­al, the pros­e­cu­tion had argued that Reneau was the per­son chiefly respon­si­ble for the crime and that Wood’s role was sec­ondary. The pros­e­cu­tion in Wood’s case changed their the­o­ry and argued that he was…

The Fordham Urban Law Journal has pub­lished a series of arti­cles based on a sym­po­sium on lethal injec­tion that was held at Fordham Law School in March 2008. The issue includes arti­cles by Professor Deborah Denno of Fordham, a lead­ing his­to­ri­an and expert on meth­ods of exe­cu­tion, Judge Jeremy Fogel, a fed­er­al judge over­see­ing the chal­lenge to lethal injec­tion in California, Judge Fernando Gaitan, a fed­er­al judge who over­saw the chal­lenge to Missouri’s lethal injec­tion process, and…

Georgia’s Hall County is encoun­ter­ing the high costs of seek­ing the death penal­ty as they pros­e­cute their first cap­i­tal case in nine years. The coun­ty expects the death penal­ty tri­al to cost at least four times as much as a reg­u­lar mur­der tri­al. Capital tri­als are by far the most expen­sive crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ing that takes place in local supe­ri­or courts. Estimates put the cost for jurors and bailiffs alone at more than sev­en times the nor­mal cost for a mur­der tri­al with­out seeking the…

On April 16, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Kentucky’s lethal injec­tion process in Baze v. Rees, there­by open­ing the door to a resump­tion of exe­cu­tions which had been on hold since September 2007. Since then, there have been 18…

In a 5 – 4 vote on August 5, the U.S. Supreme Court reject­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion for Jose Medellin, a Mexican cit­i­zen, who was then exe­cut­ed in Texas that night. On August 7, Heliberto Chi, an Honduran cit­i­zen, was also exe­cut­ed in Texas. Medellin’s case had come before the Supreme Court on two pre­vi­ous occa­sions because the International Court of Justice had ruled that the U.S. had vio­lat­ed the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by not informing…

An inmate in Alabama came with­in hours of exe­cu­tion despite the fact that seri­ous doubts arose about whether he had even com­mit­ted the crime that put him on death row. Thomas Arthur had been sched­uled to die in Alabama on July 31, but the Alabama Supreme Court vot­ed 5 – 4 on July 30 to stay his exe­cu­tion after anoth­er inmate con­fessed to the mur­der for which Arthur had been sen­tenced to death. In a sworn state­ment, Bobby Ray Gilbert con­fessed to killing Troy Wicker Jr. more than…

In a 4 – 3 vote, the Arkansas Parole Board rec­om­mend­ed that Frank Williams’ death sen­tence be com­mut­ed to life with­out parole. The Board had received peti­tions for clemen­cy from 13 state, nation­al, and inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions and devel­op­men­tal dis­abil­i­ties experts which con­clud­ed that Mr. Williams suf­fers from men­tal retar­da­tion based on his sub-aver­age adap­tive func­tion­ing and the diag­no­sis of psy­cho­log­i­cal experts. The requests for clemen­cy empha­sized the fact that executing…

Professor Celestine Richards McConville explores the plight of inmates on Alabama’s death row who face exe­cu­tion despite being denied ade­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion for key parts of their appeal in her law review article, ​“The Meaninglessness of Delayed Appointments and Discretionary Grants of Capital Postconviction Counsel.” The arti­cle is part of a University of Tulsa Law Review sym­po­sium issue on ​“The Death Penalty and the Question of Actual Innocence.” The arti­cle points out that Alabama’s…