Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Citing the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a United Nations pan­el rec­om­mend­ed that the United States impose a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions. The report, issued on July 28 by the U.N. Human Rights Committee, stat­ed the panel was ​“con­cerned by stud­ies accord­ing to which the death penal­ty may be imposed dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly on eth­nic minori­ties as well as on low-income groups, a prob­lem which does not seem to be ful­ly acknowl­edged.” The pan­el, made up of 18…

In a recent edi­to­r­i­al, the Delaware News Journal con­clud­ed that the uncer­tain­ties and delays of the death penal­ty favor end­ing the sys­tem and replac­ing it with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. Such a sys­tem would bet­ter serve vic­tims and their fam­i­lies, and bring swifter…

An arti­cle in the July Scientific American exam­ines the extent to which the television program ​“C.S.I.” and sim­i­lar foren­si­­cal­­ly-focused pro­grams have increased the expec­ta­tions of jurors in crim­i­nal tri­als. The arti­cle quotes University of California, Irvine, researchers Simon Cole and Rachel Dioso ques­tion­ing the real impact of such programs: ​“That tele­vi­sion might have an effect on court­rooms is not implau­si­ble… but to argue that ​‘C.S.I.’ and sim­i­lar shows are actu­al­ly raising the…

Four years after Andrea Yates faced the death penal­ty for the drown­ing deaths of her chil­dren, a sec­ond jury found her not guilty by rea­son of insan­i­ty. In Yates’ first cap­i­tal mur­der tri­al in 2002, jurors con­vict­ed her of mur­der and rec­om­mend­ed a sen­tence of life in prison. That con­vic­tion was over­turned on appeal last year after it was shown that the state’s psy­chi­atric wit­ness pre­sent­ed false tes­ti­mo­ny. In the sec­ond tri­al, jurors delib­er­at­ed for 13 hours before find­ing that Yates…

The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice has unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend­ed that state law­mak­ers require elec­tron­ic record­ing of all jail­house inter­ro­ga­tions. The com­mis­sion added that the law should include a pro­vi­sion stat­ing that if an offi­cer fails to record an inter­ro­ga­tion, jurors would be instruct­ed to view the defen­dan­t’s state­ment with cau­tion. Emphasizing that false con­fes­sions have been iden­ti­fied as the sec­ond most fre­quent cause of wrongful…

Delaware is the most recent state to have its exe­cu­tions halt­ed while courts exam­ine whether the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures are cru­el and unusu­al. Similar con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenges have effec­tive­ly put exe­cu­tions on hold in California, New Jersey, Florida, and Missouri. In a meet­ing with Delaware offi­cials, Chief District Judge Sue L. Robinson ordered the state to respond to a law­suit filed by Robert W. Jackson, whose sched­uled May 19 exe­cu­tion was stayed so that his lethal injection…

“Legal Executions in California: A Comprehensive Registry, 1851 – 2005,” by researchers Sheila O’Hare, Irene Berry, and Jesse Silva, pro­vides com­pre­hen­sive infor­ma­tion on legal exe­cu­tions in California from 1851 to the present. Starting with the year the Criminal Practices Act first autho­rized exe­cu­tions in the state, the book’s entries are orga­nized by year of exe­cu­tion and con­tain the felon’s name, race, age at death and a detailed nar­ra­tive of the crime that result­ed in the death sentence.

During its first pub­lic hear­ing on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission heard tes­ti­mo­ny from wit­ness­es rep­re­sent­ing a broad spec­trum of opin­ions. Almost all those tes­ti­fy­ing spoke against retain­ing the death penal­ty. Among those who tes­ti­fied before the 13-mem­ber pan­el were legal experts, reli­gious lead­ers, mur­der vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers, and exonerees such as Larry Peterson, who spent 18 years in a New Jersey prison for a rape and mur­der he did not commit. …

Based on taped con­ver­sa­tions among mem­bers of the Bexar County pros­e­cu­tor’s office, some par­tic­i­pants in the inves­ti­ga­tion of the case of Ruben Cantu may have made up their minds before talk­ing to those who now assert that Cantu was inno­cent. Cantu was exe­cut­ed in Texas in 1993. Significant evi­dence has emerged from a vic­­tim-wit­­ness and from a co-defen­­dant that Texas may have exe­cut­ed the wrong man. The senior District Attorney, Mike Beers, said on tape, before inter­view­ing the witnesseses,…

In a recent University of Wisconsin Badger Poll, more respon­dents favored a sen­tence of life with­out parole rather than the death penal­ty. Only 45% sup­port­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, while 50% favored life sen­tences. When asked about the death penal­ty in the­o­ry, with­out any alter­na­tive sen­tences men­tioned, 55.6% of Wisconsinites polled favored cap­i­tal punishment for ​“cas­es involv­ing a per­son who is con­vict­ed of first degree inten­tion­al homi­cides, if the con­vic­tion is sup­port­ed by DNA evi­dence.” In…