Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

October 10^th was World Day Against the Death Penalty, an occas­sion that Amnesty International used to urge abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty in all African states. Amnesty offi­cials not­ed that recent devel­op­ments show a trend toward death penal­ty abo­li­tion among African coun­tries, and they stat­ed that the major­i­ty of the con­ti­nen­t’s nations have aban­doned using cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Senegal abol­ished the death penal­ty for all crimes in December 2004 and Liberia in…

A jury in Arizona acquit­ted Christopher Huerstel of first-degree mur­der and of attempt­ed armed rob­bery of a Tucson pizze­ria in which 3 peo­ple were killed. Huerstel, who was 17-years-old at the time the crime was com­mit­ted, was orig­nal­ly con­vict­ed along with a co-defen­­­dant and both were sen­tenced to death in 2001. His con­vic­tion was over­turned by the Arizona Supreme Court because of errors by the tri­al judge. The jury at the re-tri­al was unable to reach a verdict on…

Ruling that jurors in the most recent retri­al of Johnny Paul Penry may not have prop­er­ly con­sid­ered his claims of men­tal impair­ment, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals sent Penry’s case back for re-sen­­­tenc­ing. The Texas court’s deci­sion marks the third time that Penry’s death sen­tence has been over­turned dur­ing the past 16 years. The U.S. Supreme Court over­turned his cap­i­tal con­vic­tion in 1989 in Penry v. Lynaugh, a deci­sion uphold­ing the exe­cu­tion of defendants…

In a dis­sent­ing opin­ion filed in the cap­i­tal case of Moore v. Parker, Judge Boyce Martin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit wrote that ​“the death penal­ty in this coun­try is arbi­trary, biased, and so fun­da­men­tal­ly flawed at its very core that it is beyond repair.” Among his many crit­i­cisms of the way cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is applied in the U.S., Martin specif­i­cal­ly not­ed his con­cerns about the issues of inno­cence, inad­e­quate defense coun­sel, and…

A new study by a team of researchers at the New York Times looks at the expand­ing use of life sen­tences in the American crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. The study, head­ed by Times reporter Adam Liptak, found that about 132,000 of the nation’s pris­on­ers, or almost 10%, are serv­ing life sen­tences. Of those, 28% have life sen­tences with no chance of parole. This is a marked increase from a 1993 Times study that found 20% of all lif­ers had no chance of parole. Liptak also reported that…

Karla, a new play by singer and song­writer Steve Earle will open at the 45 Bleecker St. Theatre on October 20 in New York City. The play tells the life sto­ry of Karla Faye Tucker, the first woman exe­cut­ed in Texas since the Civil War. She was exe­cut­ed by lethal injec­tion in 1998 while George W. Bush was gov­er­nor, despite her obvi­ous reha­bil­i­ta­tion and oppo­si­tion from a broad…

The entire cur­rent edi­tion of Congressional Quarterly’s CQ Researcher is devot­ed to a com­pre­hen­sive look at the death penal­ty in the U.S. This spe­cial CQ report, authored by Kenneth Jost and entitled ​“Death Penalty Controversies,” explores the his­to­ry of the U.S. death penal­ty and chang­ing pub­lic opin­ion about its use. It also looks at the cur­rent sta­tus of state mora­to­ri­um devel­op­ments, the con­tin­u­ing decline in U.S. exe­cu­tions, state responses to…

RACE AND THE DEATH PENALTY IN CALIFORNIA A recent study to be pub­lished in the Santa Clara Law Review found that the race of the vic­tim in the under­ly­ing mur­der great­ly affect­ed whether a defen­dant would be sen­tenced to death.Generally, there are more Hispanic and African American vic­tims of mur­der in California: –California Murder Victims 1990 – 1999 — Office of…

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed yes­ter­day to review the case of a death row inmate from South Carolina who was denied the oppor­tu­ni­ty at tri­al to present evi­dence of the pos­si­ble guilt of anoth­er per­son. In Holmes v. South Carolina, No. 04 – 1327, the Court will con­sid­er whether the state’s rules regard­ing such evi­dence deprived Holmes of his due process rights to present a com­plete defense. In 2004, the South Carolina Supreme Court had ruled that the state’s…

The Judicial Conference of the United States, the pol­i­cy mak­ing body of the nation’s fed­er­al judges, wrote a strong let­ter to mem­bers of the Senate Judiciary Committee oppos­ing parts of the Streamlined Procedures Act (S.1088) that would cur­tail death penal­ty appeals. The bill is sched­uled to be marked up by the Committee on Thursday, September 29. The judges said the bill could​“cre­ate unrea­son­able obsta­cles to res­o­lu­tion” of death penal­ty cas­es, and that it…