Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

In an impor­tant rul­ing, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has thrown out the death sen­tence of Kenisha Berry, who was sen­tenced to death in 1998 for the mur­der of her infant son, Malachi. The 5 – 4 deci­sion stat­ed that Jefferson County pros­e­cu­tors mis­stat­ed the spe­cial issue pre­sent­ed to jurors regard­ing Berry’s like­li­hood of being a future dan­ger to soci­ety, one of the key ques­tions Texas jurors con­sid­er when they are delib­er­at­ing a death sen­tence. Berry’s attorneys…

Last year, pros­e­cu­tors in two neigh­bor­ing Arizona coun­ties, Pima and Maricopa, sought the death penal­ty at dra­mat­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent rates, a fact that has many ques­tion­ing the arbi­trary nature of the state’s death penal­ty. Though just five years ago it had the high­est rate of death penal­ty cas­es in the nation, Pima County now ranks among the low­est. County Attorney Barbara LaWall sought the death penal­ty for 1 of 65 accused mur­der­ers last year, but in bor­der­ing Maricopa County, 44 of 89…

With a num­ber of exe­cu­tions of inmates who have waived their appeals approach­ing in the U.S., Amnesty International has released a new report, ​“Prisoner-assist­ed homi­cide – more ​‘vol­un­teer’ exe­cu­tions loom.” The report address­es the fact that about 12% of exe­cu­tions in the U.S. since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed have been of inmates who gave up appeals that would have extend­ed their time on death row. The report looks at some of the pos­si­ble rea­sons for the large…

“Towards the Abolition of the Death Penalty in Africa: A Human Rights Perspective” is a new book by Lilian Chenwi that exam­ines the his­to­ry of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Africa and the con­ti­nen­t’s emerg­ing trend away from the death penal­ty. In her book, Chenwi details the impact that both inter­na­tion­al human rights orga­ni­za­tions and inter­na­tion­al treaties have had on shift­ing African views about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. This resource includes chap­ters on the his­to­ry and cur­rent state of capital…

California has pro­posed new lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures that attempt to sat­is­fy the con­cerns raised by U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel, who found that the state’s pre­vi­ous prac­tice was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The new pro­to­col does not change the exist­ing three-drug cock­tail and will not require a doc­tor’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions. Defense attor­neys for Michael Morales, whose appeal led to the state’s cur­rent mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions, said the new protocol ​“fails to con­form to the…

A new Web page launched by the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty fea­tures infor­ma­tion about four men who have been exe­cut­ed but who may have been inno­cent. The site, based on NCADP’s report ​“Innocent and Executed: Four Chapters in the Life and Death of America’s Death Penalty,” pro­vides an in-depth look at the strong post-exe­cu­­tion inno­cence claims that have sur­faced in the cas­es of Cameron Todd Willingham, Carlos DeLuna, and Ruben Cantu, all of Texas, and Larry Griffin…

Byron Halsey, who nar­row­ly escaped a death sen­tence in New Jersey in 1988, had his con­vic­tion vacat­ed after DNA tests point­ed to anoth­er man as the assailant. Halsey’s defense attor­neys from the New York-based Innocence Project and the Union County District Attorney’s Office had asked a state judge to grant a joint motion to vacate Halsey’s con­vic­tion for the sex­u­al assault and mur­der of two young chil­dren. The motion states that DNA test­ing on sev­er­al key pieces of…

Acclaimed author John Grisham recent­ly told The Kansas City Star that the death penal­ty should be ​“abol­ished for­ev­er” in the United States. ​“I think the sys­tem is so bad­ly flawed that all exe­cu­tions should be stopped.… Let’s start with the basic con­cept of a fair tri­al. We are so far away from that in every state in this coun­try,” said Grisham, an attor­ney whose views on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment start­ed to shift when he wrote ​“The Chamber,” a nov­el that deals with an…

Curtis Edward McCarty, who had been sen­tenced to die three times and has spent 21 years on Oklahoma​’s death row for a crime he did not com­mit, has been released after District Court Judge Twyla Mason Gray ordered that the charges against him be dis­missed. Gray ruled that the case against McCarty was taint­ed by the ques­tion­able tes­ti­mo­ny of for­mer police chemist Joyce Gilchrist, who gave improp­er expert tes­ti­mo­ny about semen and hair evi­dence dur­ing McCarty’s tri­al. Oklahoma…