Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

The Birmingham News sharply crit­i­cized Alabama’s sys­tem of rep­re­sen­ta­tion in death penal­ty cas­es, say­ing that the pub­lic should be out­raged. A lack of even min­i­mal resources and pay has caused attor­neys to with­draw from cas­es and to decline rep­re­sen­ta­tion to indi­gent defen­dants. The paper wrote that this short­age of attor­neys could result in more tri­al errors and longer appeals, putting an undue strain on vic­tims’ fam­i­lies and the entire sys­tem of jus­tice. The edi­to­r­i­al stated:What would it…

A new Michigan Law Review arti­cle by Professor John Blume of Cornell Law School exam­ines the relationship between ​“vol­un­teer­ing” for exe­cu­tion and sui­cide. Blume found that near­ly 88% of all death row inmates who have ​“vol­un­teered” for exe­cu­tion have strug­gled with men­tal ill­ness and/​or sub­stance abuse. He writes that there is an espe­cial­ly strong link between ​“vol­un­teerism” and men­tal ill­ness. Of the ​“vol­un­teer” exe­cu­tions he reviewed, 14 involved schiz­o­phre­nia and several more…

The Death Penalty Information Center recent­ly became aware of two old­er cap­i­tal cas­es in which the defen­dants had been sen­tenced to death but were lat­er acquit­ted at re-tri­al. We have added Christopher McCrimmon of Arizona and Larry Fisher of Mississippi to our inno­cence list, bring­ing the total num­ber of peo­ple released from death row on the basis of inno­cence to 121 since 1973. McCrimmon is the eighth per­son to be exon­er­at­ed from Arizona’s death row, and Fisher is the second…

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has announced that it will issue a for­mal par­don this month for Lena Baker (pic­tured), the only woman exe­cut­ed in the state dur­ing the 20^th cen­tu­ry. The doc­u­ment, signed by all five of the cur­rent board mem­bers, will note that the parole board­’s 1945 deci­sion to deny Baker clemen­cy and allow her execution was ​“a griev­ous error, as this case called out for mer­cy.” Baker, an African American, was exe­cut­ed for the mur­der of Ernest Knight, a white man who…

An arti­cle pub­lished in the September 2004 issue of Justice Quarterly revealed that 64% of Texans sup­port a halt to exe­cu­tions while ques­tions of fair­ness and accu­ra­cy are addressed, and 48% of respon­dents lack con­fi­dence in the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem. The find­ings were based on the 2002 edi­tion of the annu­al Texas Crime Poll and the sur­vey exam­ined five key areas of con­cern about the death penal­ty, includ­ing ques­tions relat­ed to inno­cence, fair­ness, race, rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and the…

A new law review arti­cle by inter­na­tion­al death penal­ty expert Mark Warren con­cludes that the reten­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States dis­tances the nation from its closest allies ​“in ways both sym­bol­ic and tan­gi­ble, and the costs of that iso­la­tion are ris­ing steadi­ly.” Warren’s arti­cle, Death, Dissent, and Diplomacy: The U.S. Death Penalty as an Obstacle to Foreign Relations, exam­ines a broad range of con­cerns, includ­ing treaty com­pli­ance and glob­al secu­ri­ty. Warren notes…

UN Report Shows Declining Use of the Death Penalty Worldwide A report from the Secretary-General to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations on the sta­tus of the death penal­ty world­wide shows a declin­ing use of capital…

According to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s quar­ter­ly report, Death Row U.S.A., the num­ber of peo­ple on death rows around the coun­try declined again as of July 1, 2005. The lat­est count of inmates is 3,415, down from 3,452 as of April 1 and down con­sid­er­ably from the 3,692 inmates record­ed on October 1, 2002. About 54.5% of those on death row are mem­bers of racial minori­ties. Pennsylvania (70%) and Texas (69%) had the largest per­cent­age of minor­i­ty defen­dants on death row. Among the…

Newly pub­lished research exam­in­ing 340 exon­er­a­tions in the United States between 1989 and 2003 found that a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of those who were wrong­ly con­vict­ed had been sen­tenced to death. Researchers note that this find­ing appears to reflect two pat­terns: cap­i­tal defen­dants are more like­ly to be con­vict­ed in error, and false con­vic­tions are more like­ly to be detect­ed when defen­dants are on death row. The paper, authored by Professor Samuel Gross of the University of Michigan Law School…

The Conference of Chief Justices over­whelm­ing­ly passed a res­o­lu­tion urg­ing Congress to not pass the pro­posed Streamlined Procedures Act, which is aimed at cur­tail­ing death penal­ty appeals. The res­o­lu­tion was passed by the Chief Justices from state courts around the coun­try at their annu­al meet­ing in Charlestown, South Carolina. Only the chief jus­tice of Texas’ Supreme Court vot­ed against the res­o­lu­tion, stat­ing that he did not have enough time to review the document.Critics of the…