Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

The San Antonio Express-News, which sup­ports the death penal­ty, recent­ly called for a halt to exe­cu­tions in Texas because of con­cerns about the ongo­ing prob­lems at the Houston Crime Lab. The Express-News stated:This month, New Jersey law­mak­ers vot­ed to halt exe­cu­tions while a task force reviews the fair­ness and costs of impos­ing the death penalty.Texas should con­sid­er doing the same but for slight­ly dif­fer­ent reasons.The dis­turb­ing facts com­ing out of an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion into cases…

The January 2006 edi­tion of the National Geographic fea­tures the town of Monroeville, Alabama, home of freed death row inmate Walter McMillian (pic­tured) and Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird. In the arti­cle, which high­lights the town’s annu­al the­atri­cal trib­ute to Lee’s book, McMillian’s case is noted as ​“an eerie echo” of the book’s sto­ry­line. In a resem­blance to Lee’s black fic­tion­al char­ac­ter Tom Robinson, McMillian was con­vict­ed in 1987 of mur­der­ing a white woman in Monroeville…

The Georgia Public Defender Standards Council has pub­lished an analy­sis of death penal­ty cas­es in the state dur­ing the past 30 years. The report was writ­ten by Michael Mears, Director of the Council. The review exam­ines the mod­ern his­to­ry of Georgia’s death penal­ty, and pro­vides data sort­ed in a num­ber of ways, includ­ing by coun­ty, cir­cuit, and defen­dant. It also pro­vides the fol­low­ing sum­ma­ry of the dis­po­si­tions of Georgia’s death penal­ty cas­es: DISPOSITION OF GEORGIA DEATH PENALTY CASES…

Two Virginia law­mak­ers who have had a fam­i­ly mem­ber mur­dered recent­ly spoke in oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty. During a sen­ate com­mit­tee hear­ing on a bill to impose a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions, Senators Henry L. Marsh III and Janet D. Howell not­ed that their oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty was based in their expe­ri­ence of los­ing a loved one to mur­der. Howell’s father-in-law was mur­dered in his home eight years ago. She noted, ​“Up until then, I was in favor of the death penal­ty. But…

In a recent inter­view with The Washington Post, NAACP pres­i­dent Bruce C. Gordon (pic­tured) spoke about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and called for a halt to exe­cu­tions in every state until ques­tions of accu­ra­cy and fair­ness can be addressed. Gordon, who chal­lenged California Governor Arnold Schwarzennegger for refus­ing to com­mute the death sen­tence of Stanley Tookie Williams, not­ed that the death penal­ty will be a key issue for the NAACP: African Americans rep­re­sent 10 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion and 42…

Governor Mark Warner of Virginia announced that DNA tests on evi­dence from the case of Roger Keith Coleman, who was exe­cut­ed in 1992, revealed that he was almost cer­tain­ly the source of genet­ic mate­r­i­al found in the body of the vic­tim, Wanda McCoy. The Governor said that this test ​“re-affirms the ver­dict and sanc­tion” in this case. Peter Neufeld, co-direc­­tor of the Innocence Project, praised the gov­er­nor’s deci­sion to allow the test­ing and noted that, ​“The real issue is not whether one man…

A group of 40 law enforce­ment offi­cers, cur­rent and for­mer pros­e­cu­tors, and judges at the state and fed­er­al lev­el have urged California law­mak­ers to enact a tem­po­rary halt to exe­cu­tions in the state while a com­mis­sion exam­ines the accu­ra­cy and fair­ness of the death penal­ty. In a let­ter to mem­bers of the California Assembly, the bi-par­ti­san group of death penal­ty sup­port­ers and oppo­nents wrote, “[G]iven that DNA test­ing and oth­er new evi­dence has proven that more than 121 peo­ple who sat on…

The U.S. Supreme Court re-instat­ed the death sen­tence of Ronald Sanders in a 5 – 4 rul­ing over­turn­ing a deci­sion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. After Sanders had been sen­tenced to death in California, the state’s supreme court held that two of the aggra­vat­ing fac­tors used by the jury in its sen­tenc­ing deter­mi­na­tion were invalid. The 9^th Circuit had held that California is a ​“weigh­ing state” and hence the use of these invalid aggra­vat­ing fac­tors rendered the…

THREE NEW RESOURCES NOW AVAILABLE: The American Bar Association’s Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project’s Assessment of Georgia’s Death Penalty Released: January 31, 2006. Amnesty International’s Report on ​“The Execution of Mentally Ill Offenders” Released: January 31, 2006. The Constitution Project’s follow-up report: ​“Mandatory Justice: The Death Penalty Revisited” February 1, 2006. (DPIC will pro­vide more infor­ma­tion on each of…

Concerned that a fin­ger­print iden­ti­fi­ca­tion error could lead to the exe­cu­tion of an inno­cent per­son, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is exam­in­ing all cas­es of state and fed­er­al pris­on­ers sched­uled for exe­cu­tion to deter­mine whether FBI fin­ger­print experts made mis­takes that led to death sen­tences. Eighteen months ago, the FBI dis­cov­ered that a fin­ger­print exam­in­er for the Bureau had mis­tak­en­ly matched a print found near the site of ter­ror­ist bomb­ings in Madrid to a lawyer in Portland,…