Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

A fed­er­al judge in Boston pre­sid­ing over the death penal­ty case of two black defen­dants has ordered a change in the process of sum­mon­ing jurors in order to ensure a more diverse jury. U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner wrote a 95-page opin­ion and not­ed that it would be ​“pro­found­ly trou­bling” if the defen­dants, Darryl Green and Branden Morris, were to face an all-white jury in a tri­al for their lives. Gertner cit­ed stud­ies that showed that wealth­i­er geo­graph­ic areas keep more accurate jury…

U.S. Postal Inspector Gregory Duerr of Cleveland has called for a delay in an upcom­ing Ohio exe­cu­tion because he said offi­cial tes­ti­mo­ny giv­en in the case of John Spirko was unre­li­able. Spirko’s November 15 exe­cu­tion date should be ​“delayed until the seri­ous issues indi­cat­ing inno­cence (are) tru­ly resolved,” Duerr not­ed. In an open let­ter to Chief Inspector Leroy Heath, Duerr ques­tioned the char­ac­ter of a key state’s wit­ness, retired postal inspec­tor Paul Hartman. Hartman had…

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian has vowed to abol­ish the death penal­ty so that his coun­try can become a nation found­ed on the basis of human rights. In mak­ing his announce­ment, Chen noted, ​“Abolishing the death penal­ty has become a world trend. Almost every year there is one coun­try abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty.… Since I became pres­i­dent in 2000, Taiwan launched the cam­paign to abol­ish the death penal­ty by reduc­ing the hand­ing down and exe­cu­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, and by making it…

As Texas pre­pares to exe­cute Frances Newton on September 14, the Austin American-Statesman edi­to­ri­al­ized about the poor qual­i­ty of rep­re­sen­ta­tion she received at tri­al and the doubts that this rais­es about her con­vic­tion. The paper…

Robert Weisberg, a pro­fes­sor at Stanford University’s School of Law, exam­ines recent stud­ies on deter­rence and the death penal­ty, as well as oth­er social sci­ence research ragard­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the U.S. In The Death Penalty Meets Social Science: Deterrence and Jury Behavior Under New Scrutiny, Weisberg notes that many of the new stud­ies claim­ing to find that the death penal­ty deters mur­der have been legit­i­mate­ly crit­i­cized for omit­ting key vari­ables and for not addressing the…

An arti­cle in the Fall 2005 edi­tion of the mag­a­zine Amnesty International exam­ines whether men­tal­ly ill defen­dants should be exempt­ed from the death penal­ty, espe­cial­ly in light of the Supreme Court’s rul­ings exempt­ing juve­nile and men­tal­ly retard­ed offend­ers. The arti­cle quotes Ohio Northern University law pro­fes­sor Victor Streib: ​“The gen­er­al pub­lic too often assumes that only the seri­ous­ness of the crime is rel­e­vant to the pun­ish­ment, but the (Supreme) Court has repeat­ed­ly held that both…

The North Carolina State Bar has charged two for­mer Union County pros­e­cu­tors with lying, cheat­ing, and with­hold­ing evi­dence in a 1996 mur­der case that end­ed in a death sen­tence. The charges state that for­mer Union County District Attorney Kenneth Honeycutt and his assis­tant, Scott Brewer, each com­mit­ted 23 vio­la­tions of the rules that gov­ern lawyers dur­ing their 1996 pros­e­cu­tion of Jonathan Hoffman, who was sen­tenced to death for rob­bery and mur­der. The State Bar says that Honeycutt and…

John Spirko is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on September 20 in Ohio but the state’s Attorney General, Jim Petro, has rec­om­mend­ed fur­ther review of the case because his senior deputy mis­rep­re­sent­ed evi­dence to the Parole Board. The Board vot­ed 6 – 3 against lenien­cy for Spirko, who received a death sen­tence for a 1982 mur­der. Other nation­al lead­ers, such as for­mer FBI Director William S. Sessions, have also urged the state to inves­ti­gate the case more close­ly. In a let­ter to Ohio Governor Bob Taft,…

Edna Weaver, whose daugh­ter was mur­dered in New Jersey, expressed relief that the defen­dant was spared the death penal­ty. She said that she did not want William Severs Jr. exe­cut­ed for killing Tina Lambriola in 2002 because she want­ed to spare his moth­er the pain of los­ing a child. ​“I’m so thank­ful it came out the way it did.… I would­n’t want anoth­er moth­er to feel like I do — it’s a feel­ing I could nev­er put into words.… At least his moth­er will be able to write to him, she will…

As Iraq resumed car­ry­ing out the death penal­ty with the exe­cu­tion of three nation­als on September 1, the European Union (EU) expressed its hope that Iraq would aban­don cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. In a state­ment released after the exe­cu­tions, the EU noted, ​“The EU is of the view that the death penal­ty does not serve as an effec­tive deter­rent and any mis­car­riage of jus­tice, which might arise in any legal sys­tem, would be irre­versible. The EU there­fore regrets that the gov­ern­ment of Iraq has elected to…