Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Kenneth Tinsley plead­ed guilty on April 11 to the 1982 rape and cap­i­tal mur­der of a Culpeper woman — a crime for which anoth­er man, Earl Washington Jr., spent near­ly a decade on death row and was near­ly exe­cut­ed. Tinsley admit­ted to the rape of Rebecca Lynn Williams, a 19-year-old moth­er of 3, and con­ced­ed that DNA and oth­er evi­dence could have proved his guilt of her…

Challenges to the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of North Carolina’s lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures have put exe­cu­tions on hold, and it appears they will remain that way for the fore­see­able future. Though some law­mak­ers are push­ing for a legislative ​“fix” to ques­tions raised about the pro­ce­dures, Governor Mike Easley and Democratic law­mak­ers — who con­trol the leg­is­la­ture — have no plans to end the exe­cu­tion stand­still pri­or to clear court action. ​“The leg­is­la­ture isn’t going to be able to move in any…

Amnesty International has released a new report entitled ​“Justice Delayed and Justice Denied? Trials under the Military Commissions Act.” This report exam­ines whether pro­ceed­ings under the revised U.S. Military Commissions Act will com­ply with inter­na­tion­al stan­dards, espe­cial­ly when the death penal­ty is sought. In par­tic­u­lar, it explores the rights of detainees under inter­na­tion­al human rights law, the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Constitution. (Amnesty International,…

The Sentinel news­pa­per of Pennsylvania is the lat­est paper to edi­to­ri­al­ly con­clude that the death penal­ty should be abol­ished. Shortly after it pub­lished an inves­tiga­tive piece out­lin­ing the inef­fec­tive­ness of Pennsylvania’s death penal­ty, the news­pa­per edi­to­ri­al­ized that the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment laws are ​“use­less” and that the ​“pen­du­lum is swing­ing away from Pennsylvania’s posi­tion on a law it can­not even exe­cute.” The Central Pennsylvania-based news­pa­per not­ed that cap­i­tal…

If James Lee Clark is exe­cut­ed in Texas on April 11, he will be the 12^th Texas inmate exe­cut­ed out of 13 exe­cu­tions nation­wide in 2007. According to some psy­cho­log­i­cal tests, Clark has an IQ of 68 or low­er, which is one of the com­mon cri­te­ria for men­tal retar­da­tion. Clark’s defense team has asked the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Texas Governor Rick Perry to halt the exe­cu­tion because of the like­li­hood that Clark suf­fers from mental…

From 1999 to 2004, Dr. Johnny Glenn was the only foren­sic pathol­o­gist per­form­ing autop­sies in the poor­est part of Alabama. He was assist­ed only by lab tech­ni­cians as he per­formed hun­dreds of autop­sies annu­al­ly, includ­ing at least one death penal­ty case. After his abrupt depar­ture, it was dis­cov­ered that Glenn rou­tine­ly put aside his notes and often failed to fin­ish final reports or dia­grams that are cru­cial to death inves­ti­ga­tions. Two of his for­mer col­leagues say that Glenn was…

“Justice Talking” on National Public Radio recent­ly addressed cur­rent death penal­ty issues, includ­ing an exam­i­na­tion of the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing lethal injec­tions. The pro­gram, which is avail­able online, fea­tured an overview of the U.S. death penal­ty by pro­fes­sor John Blume, founder and direc­tor of the Cornell Death Penalty Project at Cornell University, and an inter­view with Deborah Denno, a pro­fes­sor of law at Fordham University who is one of the nation’s lead­ing schol­ars on the…

Pennsylvania has con­vened a com­mis­sion of judges, pros­e­cu­tors, defense attor­neys, law enforce­ment offi­cers and vic­tims’ advo­cates to study the caus­es of wrong­ful con­vic­tions and make rec­om­men­da­tions for pre­vent­ing them in the state. Forensic errors, mis­tak­en eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tions and false con­fes­sions have led to wrong­ful con­vic­tions around the nation, includ­ing 9 peo­ple from Pennsylvania who have been exon­er­at­ed by DNA evi­dence. The com­mis­sion of 40 mem­bers was sponsored…

In 2006, U.S. District Judge Malcolm J. Howard allowed two men to be exe­cut­ed by lethal injec­tion after prison offi­cials indi­cat­ed that a physi­cian and a nurse at the exe­cu­tion would mon­i­tor a type of brain-wave machine to ensure that the inmates were uncon­scious and not in pain when the par­a­lyz­ing and heart-stop­ping drugs were inject­ed. However, a depo­si­tion giv­en in November 2006 by Central Prison war­den Marvin Polk (pic­tured) is now rais­ing ques­tions about whether the judge was mis­led. In…

The Justice Project, in con­junc­tion with The Justice Project Education Fund, has issued two com­pre­hen­sive pol­i­cy reviews designed to facil­i­tate com­mu­ni­ca­tion among local law enforce­ment agen­cies, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, prac­ti­tion­ers, and oth­ers who are con­cerned about the issues of eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and the elec­tron­ic record­ing of cus­to­di­al inter­ro­ga­tions. The reviews exam­ine each of these issues and iden­ti­fy pitfalls and ​“best prac­tices” with the lat­est research behind them.