Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

U.S. District Court Judge Malcolm Howard has ordered North Carolina prison offi­cials to pro­vide med­ical­ly trained per­son­nel to ensure that death row inmate Willie Brown, Jr. is uncon­scious dur­ing his exe­cu­tion, cur­rent­ly sched­uled for April 21. Prison offi­cials have until noon on April 12 to present their plan for com­ply­ing with the order. ​“Serious ques­tions have been raised by the evi­dence con­cern­ing the effect of the cur­rent exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. If the alleged defi­cien­cies do, in fact,…

Alice Hoagland’s son, Mark Bingham (pic­tured), was killed on September 11 as he joined with fel­low United Airlines pas­sen­gers to ground a plane that may have been head­ed toward the White House. Hoagland is urg­ing a life sen­tence for Zacarias Moussaoui, who faces the death penal­ty for his role in the ter­ror­ist events of that day. In an inter­view with The Advocate, Hoagland not­ed that spar­ing Moussaoui’s life would honor ​“a rev­er­ence for all life” and that it would pre­vent some from viewing him…

The upcom­ing sixth annu­al Forensic Science and Law Conference, Justice for All, will fea­ture more than 40 nation­al experts dis­cussing caus­es of and solu­tions to wrong­ful con­vic­tions. Former FBI Director William Sessions, Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan, U.S. Senator Arlen Specter, acclaimed foren­sic sci­en­tist Henry Lee, and DNA exonerees Kirk Bloodsworth and Thomas Doswell are among those who will offer pre­sen­ta­tions dur­ing the April 20 – 22 event at Duquesne University in…

A bill to expand South Carolina’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment statute so that those who are con­vict­ed a sec­ond time of rap­ing chil­dren under 11 are eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty has drawn crit­i­cism from those who wor­ry the bill may result in unin­tend­ed con­se­quences. Fears that the leg­is­la­tion will lead to fam­i­ly mem­bers refus­ing to come for­ward regard­ing intra-fam­i­­ly offens­es and that it may also result in more rape vic­tims being killed are among the chief con­cerns regard­ing the proposed legislation.

LETHAL INJECTIONS: News & Developments Mandatory Justice: The Death Penalty Revisited Constitution Project Issues Updated Capital Punishment Reform Recommendations The Constitution Project’s blue-rib­bon Death Penalty Initiative has released an updat­ed set of guid­ing prin­ci­ples for death penalty reform. ​“Mandatory Justice: The Death Penalty Revisited” iden­ti­fies spe­cif­ic improve­ments to address prob­lems such as arbi­trari­ness, race, inef­fec­tive­ness of coun­sel, wrongful…

Although death sen­tences have declined around the coun­try, they have dra­mat­i­cal­ly increased in Jefferson County, Alabama, since 1993 when state leg­is­la­tors expand­ed the death penal­ty to include dri­ve-by shoot­ings. Jefferson County, which includes Birmingham, account­ed for near­ly 50% of the state’s death sen­tences in 2005 and 2006. According to fed­er­al data, Alabama is 23^rd in pop­u­la­tion nation­al­ly but has the coun­try’s sixth largest death row and is one of the lead­ing states in the nation in…

The Washington State Supreme Court recent­ly came with­in one vote of effec­tive­ly abol­ish­ing the state’s death penal­ty when it ruled in the case of death row inmate Dayva Cross. Cross is on death row for the mur­der of his wife and her two teenage daugh­ters. Attorneys for Cross had argued that their client should not be exe­cut­ed because killers who had com­mit­ted worse crimes had been spared the death penal­ty. The 2003 case of Green River Killer Gary Ridgway, who received a life sentence in…

Former Union County pros­e­cu­tor Scott Brewer, who is already under inves­ti­ga­tion for alleged­ly obstruct­ing jus­tice in the 1996 death penal­ty tri­al of John Gregory Hoffman, has been accused of with­hold­ing impor­tant evi­dence in a sec­ond cap­i­tal tri­al. Attorneys rep­re­sent­ing Darrell Strickland have asked the North Carolina State Bar to dis­ci­pline Brewer for improp­er­ly with­hold­ing three state­ments made by the vic­tims’ wife, Gail Brown, the only eye­wit­ness to the crime for which their client was…

During a recent pre­sen­ta­tion at Valparaiso University, Sister Helen Prejean (pic­tured) engaged in a dis­cus­sion with the school’s pas­tor, Rev. Joseph Cunningham. Responding to a remark that Prejean had made about defense attor­neys only need­ing to con­vince one juror to vote against the death penal­ty, Cunningham told Prejean that he had been fore­man of a jury that sen­tenced a man to death in 1995. He remarked that he is still deal­ing with the emo­tion­al toll of that expe­ri­ence, stating, ​“I ache…

A new book by Michael Meltsner, The Making of a Civil Rights Lawyer, pro­vides a per­son­al his­to­ry of the civ­il rights move­ment from the per­spec­tive of an attor­ney com­mit­ted to social change. Meltsner’s writ­ings bring to life a sem­i­nal peri­od of legal reform in U.S. his­to­ry. The book dis­cuss­es famous cas­es and the turn­ing points in the civ­il rights and death penal­ty move­ments. Stephen Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights notes, ​“Michael Meltsner has per­formed a great public…