Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Prosecutors in North Carolina on December 11 dropped all charges against Jonathon Hoffman, who had been con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the 1995 mur­der of a jew­el­ry store own­er. Hoffman won a new tri­al in 2004 because infor­ma­tion favor­able to Hoffman was with­held from the defense. During Hoffman’s first tri­al, the state’s key wit­ness, Johnell Porter, had received immu­ni­ty from fed­er­al charges for tes­ti­fy­ing against his cousin. The defense attor­neys, jury, and the judge did…

Gov. Ernie Fletcher of Kentucky com­mut­ed the death sen­tence of Jeffrey D. Leonard for the 1983 mur­der of a Louisville store clerk before leav­ing office. Governor Fletcher reduced Leonard’s death sen­tence to life with­out parole. He had been con­vict­ed under the name of James Earl Slaughter. The Governor not­ed in his com­mu­ta­tion that Leonard was not pro­vid­ed with ade­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion and that Leonard’s attor­ney did not even know his clien­t’s real name dur­ing the tri­al. The…

After hours of debate and tes­ti­mo­ny, the New Jersey Senate today approved bill S‑171 which will replace the state’s death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. The mea­sure was approved by a vote of 21 – 16 and now moves to the State Assembly, where approval is also expect­ed in a vote on Thursday. The gov­er­nor has indi­cat­ed he will sign the bill into law, mak­ing New Jersey the first state to leg­isla­tive­ly abol­ish the death penal­ty in over 40 years. Around the coun­try, the death penalty…

Today, December 10, 2007, the New Jersey Senate will vote on a bill (Senate Bill 171) to replace the death penal­ty with the sen­tence of life with­out parole. Earlier, the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission held exten­sive pub­lic hear­ings that cul­mi­nat­ed in a report call­ing for an end to the death penal­ty. The Commission con­sist­ed of a wide range of per­spec­tives, includ­ing law enforce­ment, vic­tims, and attor­neys. Some of the key find­ings of the report…

On December 5, a Tennessee jury acquit­ted Michael Lee McCormick of the 1985 mur­der of Donna Jean Nichols, a crime for which McCormick spent 16 years on death row. In his first tri­al, the pros­e­cu­tion intro­duced hair evi­dence from Nichols’ car that the FBI said matched McCormick. DNA test­ing lat­er found that the hair did not match McCormick and this evi­dence was not per­mit­ted in the new tri­al. McCormick’s attor­ney, Karla Gothard said after the trial, ​“We have been liv­ing with this case for…

In a recent editorial entitled ​“The Myth of Deterrence,” the Dallas Morning News point­ed to the many rea­sons why the death penal­ty does not deter mur­ders: a major­i­ty of mur­ders can be clas­si­fied as irra­tional acts, and the per­pe­tra­tors are unlike­ly to have con­sid­ered the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a death sen­tences before and dur­ing the crime; those who com­mit pre­med­i­tat­ed mur­der are also unlike­ly to con­sid­er the pos­si­bil­i­ty of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment because it is so unlike­ly to be carried out. ​“No ratio­nal…

By an 8 – 4 vote on Dec. 3, the New Jersey Senate Budget Committee vot­ed to advance a bill to replace the death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life in prison with­out parole. The bill would make New Jersey the first state to leg­isla­tive­ly abol­ish the death penal­ty since the U.S. Supreme Court rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty in 1976. Senator Raymond Lesniak, the bil­l’s spon­sor, cit­ed a recent case of wrong­ful con­vic­tion in New Jersey when explain­ing his sup­port for abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty. He…

On Tuesday, Dec. 4, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear argu­ments in Snyder v. Louisiana, a case involv­ing a black defen­dant sen­tenced to death by an all-white jury after the pros­e­cu­tion used its peremp­to­ry strikes to exclude all of the qual­i­fied black jurors. During Allen Snyder’s 1996 tri­al for the mur­der of a man his estranged wife was dat­ing, pros­e­cu­tor James Williams of Jefferson Parish urged the all-white jury to sen­tence the defen­dant to death so that Snyder would not ​“get away with it”…

In a recent op-ed in the New Jersey Daily Record, Jim O’Brien detailed his expe­ri­ences with the legal sys­tem as the father of a mur­der vic­tim. His daugh­ter Deidre was mur­dered in 1982, and the cap­i­tal tri­als and appeals for the man con­vict­ed of the crime last­ed anoth­er 8 years. O’Brien stated, ​“I’ve lived through the state’s process of try­ing to kill [a mur­der­er], and I can say with­out hes­i­ta­tion that it is not worth the anguish that it puts sur­vivors through….” Because of the ​“hor­ren­dous…