Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

Veteran New York leg­is­la­tor John R. Dunne vot­ed for the death penal­ty 12 times dur­ing his tenure in the New York Senate. He then went on to serve as an assis­tant attor­ney gen­er­al at the U.S. Department of Justice. But his con­cerns about the fair­ness and accu­ra­cy of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment have now result­ed in his oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty. In an op-ed appear­ing in the New York Daily News, Dunne wrote:As a mem­ber of the New York Senate from 1966 to 1989, I vot­ed 12 times to establish the…

The new pres­i­dent of Iraq, Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani (pic­tured), recent­ly voiced his con­cerns about the death penal­ty, even for those accused of war crimes like Saddam Hussein. ​“I am among the lawyers who signed an inter­na­tion­al peti­tion against the death penal­ty in the world and it would be [a] prob­lem for me if Iraqi courts issued death sen­tences,” Talabini said when asked about the fate of Hussein, who is in U.S. cus­tody in Iraq await­ing tri­al for war crimes and crimes against…

The Death Penalty Information Center has expand­ed the resources relat­ed to its award-win­n­ing Educational Curriculum on the Death Penalty. We now offer a list­serv for edu­ca­tors who teach about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, free teacher train­ing work­shops, and free brochures for dis­tri­b­u­tion to schools and teach­ers. Launched in 2000, DPIC’s Educational Curriculum is a bal­anced Internet-based class­room tool that offers flex­i­ble les­son plans, teacher overviews, sep­a­rate teacher and stu­dent curriculum Web…

For Florida pris­on­ers, includ­ing death row inmates, who were con­vict­ed before DNA evi­dence was rou­tine­ly test­ed, the state-imposed October 1 dead­line to sub­mit new claims is fast approach­ing. After that date, evi­dence may be destroyed and the chance for an exon­er­a­tion extin­guished. Yet the sys­tem is seri­ous­ly back­logged and under-resourced. Noting that Governor Jeb Bush recent­ly stat­ed that any court in Florida or elsewhere would ​“imme­di­ate­ly” review a pris­on­er’s claim of DNA evidence…

Legislation that would allow those con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der to be sen­tenced to life in prison with­out parole recent­ly failed to win a key pro­ce­dur­al vote in the Texas Senate, large­ly because of oppo­si­tion from pros­e­cu­tors and pro-death penal­ty orga­ni­za­tions who said it would result in few­er death sen­tences. Although sup­port­ed by a strong major­i­ty of the sen­a­tors and the peo­ple of Texas, the bill need­ed a 2/​3 major­i­ty in order to be debat­ed. The Senate’s fail­ure to pass the bill means that…

According to a new report issued by Amnesty International, the United States is among four coun­tries that car­ried out the vast major­i­ty of the 3,797 exe­cu­tions around the world in 2004. Amnesty’s report states that the nations car­ry­ing out the most exe­cu­tion­ers last year were China (3,400), Iran (159), Vietnam (64), United States (59), Saudi Arabia (33), Pakistan (15), Kuwait (9), Bangladesh (7), Egypt (6), Singapore (6), and Yemen (6). The report notes that the increase in executions in…

A Georgia Superior Court over­turned the mur­der con­vic­tion of death row inmate Willie Palmer after find­ing that pros­e­cu­tors hid a $500 pay­off to the state’s key tri­al wit­ness, an act the judge said was ​“in defi­ance of (the state’s) legal and eth­i­cal duties.” The judge also threw out Palmer’s death sen­tence on the grounds that his tri­al lawyer failed to inves­ti­gate and present evi­dence of Palmer’s men­tal retar­da­tion. In his opin­ion, the judge not­ed that prosecutors ​“inten­tion­al­ly hid” a deal…

In the most com­pre­hen­sive exam­i­na­tion of a statute in the his­to­ry of the New York State Legislature, state law­mak­ers released a report high­light­ing the tes­ti­mo­ny of 170 wit­ness­es at five statewide hear­ings on the state’s death penal­ty law. The report, issued by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver along with the Chairs of the Committees on Codes, the Judiciary and Correction, is a thor­ough exam­i­na­tion of the statute and its troubled…

During his 26 years as leader of the Roman Catholic Church, the late Pope John Paul II fre­quent­ly called for an end to the death penal­ty. Among his state­ments on this issue were the following:“May the death penal­ty, an unwor­thy pun­ish­ment still used in some coun­tries, be abol­ished through­out the world.” (Prayer at the Papal Mass at Regina Coeli Prison in Rome, July 9, 2000).“A sign of hope is the increas­ing recog­ni­tion that the dig­ni­ty of human life must nev­er be tak­en away, even in the case…

As two men con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der under the fed­er­al death penal­ty statute await their sen­tenc­ing on April 11, Puerto Rican Governor Anibal Acevedo and the Association of American Jurists, a non-gov­­ern­­men­­tal orga­ni­za­tion act­ing as a con­sul­tant at the United Nations, protest­ed the use of the death penal­ty in Puerto Rico. Though Puerto Rico’s Constitution pro­hibits the death penal­ty and its res­i­dents have con­sis­tent­ly voiced strong oppo­si­tion to it, res­i­dents who com­mit a federal capital…