Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

More than 16 years after a Pennsylvania jury returned three death sen­tences against Harold Wilson (pic­tured), new DNA evi­dence has helped lead to his acquit­tal. Yesterday, Wilson became the nation’s 122^nd per­son freed from death row accord­ing to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). During his 1989 cap­i­tal tri­al, Wilson was pros­e­cut­ed by for­mer Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Jack McMahon, a man best known for his role in a train­ing video that advised new…

A bill to rein­state the death penal­ty in Massachusetts was reject­ed by the House of Representatives, end­ing Governor Mitt Romney’s effort to estab­lish a​“gold stan­dard” for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. House mem­bers defeat­ed the mea­sure by a vote of 100 – 53 after four hours of floor debate. Romney had described the bill as​“fool­proof,” stat­ing that it con­tained strict safe­guards that could pro­tect against wrong­ful con­vic­tions and that the nar­row scope of the bill meant that…

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill recent­ly announced that he is rethink­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment because it is expen­sive, can be polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed, and risks inno­cent lives. Winmill, who freed death row exoneree Charles Fain in 2001 after DNA evi­dence proved his inno­cence, said that Fain’s case and the very dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ence of sen­tenc­ing a guilty man to die for mur­der prompt­ed him to rethink cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. During a speech before the City Club of Boise,…

A state­ment approved dur­ing this week’s meet­ing of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) calls for an end to the death penal­ty in the United States and notes that the death penal­ty​“con­tributes to a cycle of vio­lence in our soci­ety that must be bro­ken.” The state­ment, draft­ed by the USCCB Domestic Policy Committee, is the first com­pre­hen­sive state­ment focused on the death penal­ty by the Catholic bish­ops of the United States in 25 years. It is part of the…

The Bureau of Justice Statistics released its lat­est report on the sta­tus of the death penal­ty in the U.S., Capital Punishment, 2004, on November 13. According to the report, the nation’s death row pop­u­la­tion, exe­cu­tions, and the num­ber of peo­ple giv­en death sen­tences last year all declined. There were 3,315 peo­ple on state and fed­er­al death rows at the con­clu­sion of 2004, 63 few­er than in 2003. Last year, 125 peo­ple were sen­tenced to death, the fewest…

According to the North Carolina News & Record, death sen­tences in the state have sig­nif­i­cant­ly declined since the 2001 enact­ment of leg­is­la­tion that allows defen­dants to plead guilty to first-degree mur­der and receive a sen­tence of life with­out parole rather than go to tri­al and risk the death penal­ty. Juries are also return­ing few­er death sen­tences. The paper argues that the emer­gence of the life-with­­­out-parole alter­na­tive should result in…

In a rul­ing that crit­i­cized the state for con­ceal­ing a $500 pay­off to a key state wit­ness in a 1997 death penal­ty case, the Georgia Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly upheld a low­er court deci­sion order­ing a new trial for…

On November 7, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear cas­es in two areas that could have broad impli­ca­tions for many defen­dants fac­ing the death penal­ty. In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, No. 05 – 184, the Court will rule on the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the mil­i­tary tri­bunals estab­lished by President Bush fol­low­ing the September 11, 2001 ter­ror­ist attacks. A U.S. District Court had halt­ed the mil­i­tary tri­al of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who had been cap­tured in Afghanistan,…

In an edi­to­r­i­al in its Sunday, November 6 edi­tion, the Birminham News announced that​“After decades of sup­port­ing the death penal­ty, the edi­to­r­i­al board no longer can do so.” The paper cit­ed both prac­ti­cal and eth­i­cal rea­sons for the change in its stance: “[W]e have come to believe Alabama’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem is bro­ken. And because, first and fore­most, this news­pa­per’s edi­to­r­i­al board is com­mit­ted to a cul­ture of life.… We believe all life is…

A recent Dayton Daily News video edi­to­r­i­al urged Ohio Governor Bob Taft to grant clemen­cy to John Spirko, an Ohio death row inmate sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on November 15. The video states that Spirko’s case was plagued with gaps and incon­sis­ten­cies, and that he may actu­al­ly be inno­cent. The video was part­ly shot inside Ohio’s​“death house” in Lucasville prison. To view the video on the Web, click…