Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

U.S. Senators Patrick Leahy (D‑VT) and Arlen Specter (R‑PA) (pic­tured) are urg­ing the Justice Department to delay new rules that would give Attorney General Alberto Gonzales author­i­ty to lim­it the time death row inmates spend pur­su­ing appeals before being exe­cut­ed. Senator Leahy chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Specter is the rank­ing Republican mem­ber of that com­mit­tee. The two recent­ly sent a bipar­ti­san let­ter to Gonzales express­ing con­cerns about whether states have adequate…

Nearly two decades after the 1988 rob­bery and mur­der of James Scanlon, his fam­i­ly now says that a sen­tence of life with­out parole for his killer — Ronald Rompilla — will end years of emo­tion­al strain result­ing from the death penal­ty and will help them to start the healing process. ​“It’s time to start remem­ber­ing my dad for the good per­son he was and not always affil­i­at­ing it with Ronald Rompilla and the death penal­ty. … (I)t was time. I did­n’t think going after it again would be good for us…

The Justice Department is final­iz­ing reg­u­la­tions that could give Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales (pic­tured) the abil­i­ty to short­en the time that death row inmates have to appeal their case in fed­er­al court, a change that many crit­ics believe will make cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment more unfair and inac­cu­rate. Under the 2006 reau­tho­riza­tion of the Patriot Act, the Attorney General was giv­en the pow­er to decide whether indi­vid­ual states are pro­vid­ing ade­quate coun­sel for defen­dants in death penalty…

Though there is a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in Illinois, pros­e­cu­tors in the state are still seek­ing cap­i­tal con­vic­tions, and many juris­dic­tions are rely­ing on the tax­­pay­er-fund­ed Illinois Capital Litigation Fund to off­set the high costs of death penalty cases. ​“It costs a lot of mon­ey,” observed 6^th Circuit Chief Judge John Shonkwiler when asked about the expens­es asso­ci­at­ed with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment tri­als. Dee Dee Rentmeister, an admin­is­tra­tive assis­tant to the DeWitt County Board, agreed,…

Administrative Judge Fred G. Morrison Jr. has ruled that North Carolina prison offi­cials failed to live up to their promise that a doc­tor would mon­i­tor Willie Brown’s vital signs dur­ing his 2006 exe­cu­tion. Morrison, in his rul­ing, stat­ed that the prison offi­cials’ assur­ances that a doc­tor would par­tic­i­pate in the execution had ​“per­suad­ed the judge to let them exe­cute Willie Brown.” He went on to note, ​“The doc­tor did not observe the inmate nor did he mon­i­tor vital signs.” Morrison’s ruling…

Former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr, a well-known con­ser­v­a­tive voice and a death penal­ty sup­port­er, recent­ly ques­tioned the fair­ness and accu­ra­cy of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in an opin­ion piece pub­lished by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Barr not­ed that a recent University of Virginia study of wrong­ful con­vic­tion cas­es has raised seri­ous ques­tions about the reli­a­bil­i­ty of eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. He also applaud­ed the Georgia Supreme Court’s recent deci­sion to grant a hear­ing to death row…

Less than a month after the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles tem­porar­i­ly halt­ed the July 17 exe­cu­tion of Troy Davis (pic­tured) based on con­cerns about his pos­si­ble inno­cence, the Georgia Supreme Court has agreed to con­sid­er Davis’s appeal. By a vote of 4 to 3, the Court agreed to hear oral argu­ments in the case and con­sid­er whether eye­wit­ness recan­ta­tions and oth­er evi­dence dis­cov­ered since Davis’s 1991 con­vic­tion and death sen­tence are suf­fi­cient grounds for a new tri­al. Davis was…

A June 2007 Gallup Poll revealed that, dur­ing the past decade, there has been a sig­nif­i­cant drop in the per­cent­age of whites and blacks who sup­port cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Among black respon­dents, oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty has grown from 37% in the mid-1990s to a major­i­ty of 56% today. Responses giv­en by white respon­dents have also shift­ed dur­ing the past decade. In the mid-1990s, 80% of white respon­dents said that they favored the death penal­ty, but today that per­cent­age has dropped…

When weigh­ing whether to seek the death penal­ty, Tulsa County First Assistant District Attorney Doug Drummond says that he tries to deter­mine how future juries will assess the evi­dence, as well as how a death penal­ty case will impact vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers. He observes, ​“Life with­out parole with­out appeals might be a bet­ter sit­u­a­tion for a lot of vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. There are some pos­i­tive things about that.… A lot of peo­ple, at first blush when a loved one is killed,…

A new Ohio State University study has found that blacks con­vict­ed of killing whites are not only more like­ly than non-whites to receive a death sen­tence, but also more like­ly to be exe­cut­ed. Blacks on death row for killing non-whites are less like­ly to be exe­cut­ed than oth­ers on death row. ​“Examining who sur­vives on death row is impor­tant because less than 10% of those giv­en the death sen­tence ever get exe­cut­ed,” said David Jacobs (pic­tured), co-author of the study and professor of…