Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

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…

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…

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…

“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…

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…

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 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…

“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…

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…

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…