Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

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.

“Sacco and Vanzetti” is an 80-minute-long doc­u­men­tary that tells the sto­ry of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian immi­grants who were accused of a mur­der in 1920, and exe­cut­ed in Boston in 1927 after a con­tro­ver­sial tri­al. It is the first major doc­u­men­tary film about this land­mark sto­ry, which came to sym­bol­ize the bias against immi­grants by some in America. At the time of their exe­cu­tion, mil­lions of peo­ple in the U.S. and around the world protest­ed on their behalf, and…

Jim Davidsaver, a 20-year vet­er­an with the Lincoln Police Department in Nebraska, recent­ly wrote a col­umn out­lin­ing his sup­port for leg­is­la­tion that would have repealed the state’s death penal­ty. Davidsaver said he sup­port­ed the mea­sure, which failed to pass into law, because the death penal­ty does not deter crime and is too expen­sive. He not­ed that in his years of ser­vice with the police force he wit­nessed many hor­rif­ic crime scenes, but none of the accused…

Alabama is the only state that does not pro­vide attor­neys for indi­gent death row inmates through­out their state appeal. Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing some of those on death row in the state will soon ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case chal­leng­ing this prac­tice. The attor­neys will ask the Court to deter­mine whether peo­ple fac­ing exe­cu­tion have a con­sti­tu­tion­al right to an attor­ney as part of their right of mean­ing­ful access to the courts. Alabama main­tains that it should be able to go it alone…

Prior to their dis­missals, three fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors whose fir­ings are under scruti­ny by Congress were engaged in a strug­gle with the Justice Department over its expand­ed pur­suit of the fed­er­al death penal­ty. Paul Charlton of Arizona, Margaret Chiara of Michigan, and Kevin Ryan of California were all crit­i­cized by Justice offi­cials for fail­ing to seek death sen­tences as part of a broad­er use of the fed­er­al death penal­ty begun by for­mer Attorney General John Ashcroft and con­tin­ued by Alberto…

After decades of main­tain­ing a posi­tion that the gov­ern­ment should have the legal right to impose cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, the Chicago Tribune is now call­ing for abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty. Noting con­cerns about inno­cence, the arbi­trary nature of the pun­ish­ment, and the pub­lic’s shift away from the death penal­ty, the Tribune announced on March 25 that, ​“The evi­dence of mis­takes, the evi­dence of arbi­trary deci­sions, the sober­ing knowl­edge that gov­ern­ment can’t provide certainty…

The most recent vol­ume of Criminology & Public Policy exam­ines the top­ic of race and polic­ing. Contributors to this spe­cial vol­ume offer time­ly insights in this con­tro­ver­sial area, with most agree­ing that more can be done to address the long-stand­ing ten­sion between street offi­cers and com­mu­ni­ties of col­or. The arti­cles fea­tured in the journal are ​“The Importance of Research on Race and Policing: Making Race Salient to Individuals and Institutions Within Criminal Justice” by David A.

Because of the high costs of pur­su­ing death penal­ty cas­es, Georgia’s pub­lic defend­er sys­tem has run out of funds. Most of state’s 72 cap­i­tal cas­es have been brought to a stand­still. The judge in one recent high-pro­­file case has put off jury selec­tion until September 10 because of the fund­ing cri­sis. The high-pro­­file case involves Brian Nichols, who has been charged with the 2005 cour­t­house shoot­ing that left a judge, and three oth­er vic­tims dead. Because the death penal­ty is being sought for…

The lat­est edi­tion of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s ​“Death Row, USA” reports that the num­ber of peo­ple on death row in the United States rose slight­ly to 3,350 as of January 1, 2007, an increase of 6 inmates from October 1, 2006, but a decline of 23 inmates from a year ago. The slight increase appears to be part­ly the result of the rel­a­tive­ly few exe­cu­tions in the last quar­ter of 2006. California (660), Florida (397), and Texas (393) con­tin­ued to have the largest death row…

A mea­sure to repeal Nebraska​’s death penal­ty and replace it with a sen­tence of life with­out parole fell one vote short of mov­ing to the sec­ond of three stages in con­sid­er­a­tion by the uni­cam­er­al leg­is­la­ture. It was the first time the full leg­is­la­ture had debat­ed the death penal­ty in near­ly two decades. The mea­sure’s defeat fol­lowed two days of debate about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, includ­ing whether deci­sions to impose the death penal­ty reflect social, eco­nom­ic or racial bias. In addition,…